Teacher
Stylish Dinosaur
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2005
- Messages
- 12,135
- Reaction score
- 407
You can have an asbolutely vicious check that was borderline intent to hospitalize that, by luck, doesn't keep a guy out for very long. And you can have something that was irresponsible but, on the whole, unintended, that puts a guy out for months because he happened to fall the wrong way. I don't want to see people suspended based on that kind of fluke. Look at the action itself. Bertuzzi's a good example; Moore deserved to get sucker punched, he did not deserve to have his career ended and I don't think anyone will honestly say Bertuzzi was trying to injure him, and his suspension should have been exactly the same as it would've been if Moore had played the next Avs game. But some people were calling for him to be kicked out of hockey because of it. Meanwhile Claude Lemieux's hit on Kris Draper, one of the dirtiest plays ever, didn't keep Lemieux out of action. Domi's elbow was intent to injure... whether or not Niedermayer played the next game matters not at all. It's the nature of the act that should determine the penalty.
Flukes are just that: flukes. Any decent ref will understand that. But when someone intends to hit/slash/but-end someone else, I'm not that interested in whether he actually intended to break a bone or not...he did, and he should be held accountable for it. I'm tired of all this crap in hockey. Some say it's part of the game, but I say it isn't. I watch hockey to see skill and speed. When I want to see violence, I watch MMA.