With the recent weirdness around the NHL lately, I could only determine the cause to be a full moon – sorta – I mean, it’s not quite a full moon, but close enough.
Let’s look at the situations that have surrounded our game lately.
First, Shane Doan gets more than enough punishment for his hit against Dan Sexton of the team on the western coast that is not Los Angeles. Not only do I hate that team now, but I hate Brad Harold who was just giddy with self-importance telling us how that hit was a “classic” blind side hit. While I disagree with some about the nature of the hit and the nature of the suspension, I completely think that Harold goes way over the top. I still want to know how he felt about Pronger’s failing elbows when he was with the team on the western coast that is not Los Angeles? He might have said something pretty stupid like “Well, Pronger is a big guy so he can’t really be held accountable for his elbows.”
Second, thanks to Puck Daddy, we have this gem:
Canucks Rick Rypien just loses it because a fan was clapping and taunting Rypien as he left the ice. The guy doesn’t reach in and both of them get ejected? Man, if I get tossed from a game because of some idiotic player reached to grab me from my seats, I’ll raise a bunch of hell. Stick tap to the fans that just walked away from the incident – I would not have gone that quietly.
Rypien has been suspended pending a hearing for his behavior.
Ooh, what else? Oh, we have this guy who had this flying elbow last year and knocked Shane Doan for a loop. What did he do? He just tells Avery what he does…or should do…or whatever…
Then, Pierre-Luc Letourneau Leblond gets suspended due to instigating a fight within the last five minutes of a hockey game.
That game ended up being chippy for many reasons, but I’d like to think he was upset because he has too many names.
In The Doan Situation above, I’ve already embedded video of those suspension issues.
There was a fine for this hit by Ottawa forward Nick Foligno hitting the head of Carolina forward Patrick Dwyer.
And I guess I’ll stop there and just ask the question again: what the hell is going on? Save for the Doan Situation, I just have to think it’s a full moon. I haven’t seen this in recent years where a spate of suspensions and fines come so close within a fortnight. I’ve seen these issues spread out a bit over a season, but wow. Mr. Campbell has been sure busy lately.
However, what irks me more is that Foligno was just fined for his open ice hit – the same type of hit that Doan was punished for (but to me Foligno’s was far worse); I’ll share more later about why I think the heavy hand of justice crashed down on Doan and on the Coyotes.
Original Story:
http://onefansperspective.com/2010/10...
