Dear Gary Bettman,
The last time I checked, you can’t do this in the National Hockey League:
I know you don’t want to bring the hammer down on your snugglebunny and object of your late night fantasies, but you should. You really should.
Regards,
Rory
Part-time Blogger, Full-time Hockey Fan.
For anyone who couldn’t quite figure out what was in that video, it was The Second Coming of Christ Sidney Crosby getting involved in a scrum in front of the net, and then skating up behind Atlanta defenseman Boris Valabik in a prone position on the ice, on all fours after fighting with another player, and sucker-punches him in the back of the head, and then repeatedly on the lower part of his body. Upon another viewing, it looks like he decked him in the groin. Seriously?
Had this been any other player, they would be suspended right now. If Crosby had been the one getting punched, the guy who punched him would be out of the league without question. Hell, he’d have been taken out back and shot during the next intermission.
We have seen hits like these before. Specifically, this one(for some reason, no sound – sorry):
And this one:
Why is Crosby allowed to get away with practically the same thing that ended both of these two players’ careers? Everyone knows how the Bertuzzi/Moore incident turned out, and Ranger fans know that that was the last game Jeff Beukeboom ever played, and Matt Johnson was suspended for 12 games, which at the time was fairly hefty. Apparently, in the NHL, you have to end someone’s career or almost kill them for there to be any sort of penalty.
It’s not that I hate Sidney Crosby. Yes, I despise the fact that he dives (he does), embellishes and looks like a mentally challenged duck. But, I actually admire the fact that he’s been able to handle the immense pressure and expectations being put on him by the NHL. They chose him to be the face of the league, and I commend him for not crumbling under the pressure.
That being said, I do think he gets away with some things that other players wouldn’t be able to. This is one of those things. However, unlike the Bertuzzi and Beukeboom incidents, what Crosby did wasn’t on it’s own, in the middle of open ice, much like those two were. That doesn’t make it alright. You can’t skate up behind a player who is down on all fours, surrounded by other players, and punch him in the back of the head, then proceed to wail on him, while he can’t defend himself. I don’t care who you are, you cannot do that. If he had done this to a Ranger, there more than likely would have been some sort of riot at MSG. Unfortunately for Valabik, the Thrashers suck and no one cares about them, so this goes unnoticed.
As of right now, there has been no mention of a possible suspension for dear, dear Sidney, and I’ll bet you all the money in my bank account that there won’t be. But I want to go on the record as saying that there should be, and it is disgraceful that just because he is deemed a ‘superstar,’ that he can commit unallowable, and downright cowardly acts of violence.
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