BY JAMES HUNT – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
In Tuesday night’s Canucks-Blackhawks game, Vancouver forward Jannik Hansen gave Chicago’s Marian Hossa a hit to the head that earned Hansen a two-minute minor and a one game suspension from NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan. The play itself was clearly a hockey play that ended badly for Hossa and whether Hansen INTENDED to injure Hossa or not can be debated until the cows come home.
At the end of the day, Hansen hit Hossa in the head and Hossa left the game because of it.
Earlier in this very same game, Canuck forward Dale Weise hit Hawk forward Marcus Kruger with a hard, but clean hit along the boards. Within three seconds of this clean hockey hit, Chicago forward Brandon Bollig dropped his gloves, he grabbed a hold of Weise and he started pounding Weise in the face. Bollig clearly hit Weise with three shots to the head before Weise even knew he was in a fight. Once Weise knew what was happening he started returning the favour. In the end, neither player ended up missing any time due to injury. The referees in this game called it exactly as they should have. Bollig received two minutes for instigating a fight, five for fighting and a 10 minute misconduct, while Weise received a five minute fighting major.
In the Hansen – Hossa incident, the puck was fluttering up in the air, it was heading in the direction of both Hansen and Hossa. Neither player is known to be overly aggressive and neither player has ever been suspended. Both players reached out to try and grab the puck and as we all know, Hansen ended up hitting Hossa in the head and the end result was Hossa laying on the ice because of this blow to the head. While Hossa was clearly hit in the head, it is virtually impossible to prove that Hansen INTENDED to injure Hossa. In the end Brendan Shanahan suspended Hansen for one game.
In the other incident, Brandon Bollig CLEARLY targeted the head of Dale Weise and he CLEARLY intended to injure Weise with punches to the players head area. Weise had no intention of fighting and the only reason he did was for self-preservation.
In the end, the referees saw this exactly the way it went down.
Why then did the second incident receive no hearing or no supplementary discipline from Brendan Shanahan? If the NHL is so determined to protect the heads of NHL players, why was this particular incident not even looked at? After all, Bollig clearly intended to injure another players head in an unprovoked attack.
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