The Mark Bell Hit: Was it Clean?

The Senators may be in trouble even though they managed the squeak into the playoffs. No, it's not their goaltending woes (which are non-existent), it's their loss of both their Captain Daniel Alfredsson and Mike Fisher to injuries. Both of the injuries occurred Thursday night in their 8-2 victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and both came at the hands of Leafs forward Mark Bell. A recent TSN.ca poll has revealed 82% of viewers think that the Sens can't win in the playoffs without their captain. The injury to Fisher is not really arguable since it was only a small collision, which you cannot blame Bell for. His injury was a fluke. The hit that injured Alfredsson, on the other hand, has been quite the hot topic.



I believe it was clean. I'm probably one of the biggest Leaf "jokers" ("haters" is just too strong) around, so this determination is not biased whatsoever. I think that if Alfredsson got up uninjured, this hit would just be on the highlight reel of every sports station and not ripped apart like it has been. Of course the reason people say he got hurt was because of the way Bell hit him.

The way Mark Bell hit Daniel Alfredsson caused him to get injured.

That is absolutely correct.

Was the hit illegal in any way? Not at all. Bell caught Alfredsson in a vulnerable position and punished him the way any good NHL checker does. If that's dirty then so be it, hockey is a dirty sport by their standards.

We should be worried much more about REAL head shots (and the people who go around looking for them), hits from behind, and protecting the goaltenders. Hits like these can stay in my NHL.

**You can vote on whether it was a clean hit or not on the top right hand corner of this site**