I haven’t written a blog in a while, but the Zdeno Chara hit on Max Pacioretty has pulled me out of blogger retirement.
In case you missed it, Chara drove Pacioretty into the boards where the glass partition begins near the benches at the Bell Centre near the end of the second period Wednesday night. Pacioretty was bloodied, knocked out cold and taken off on a stretcher to hospital.
It’s not so much the hit itself that’s bothering me – though it wasn’t pretty - rather the way it’s being covered.
Chara should be suspended for life, is pretty much the gist outside of Boston. One Montreal Gazette writer, Dave Stubbs, ridiculously compared the incident to the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili at last year’s Olympics and said any “reasonable fan” should have been “repulsed… no matter their allegiance.”
Count me among the unreasonable, I guess.
I don’t like seeing gore out there, but when you check the stories on the major mainstream outlets like TSN, ESPN and others and you’ll see no mention of what Chara’s hit was really about: January 8.
What happened that night in front of a national TV audience on Hockey Night in Canada was Pacioretty scored the overtime winner in a 3-2 victory over Boston, and then followed Chara after the goal so he could give him an extra “up yours” shove in the back as the 6-foot-9 defenseman skated away.
Chara lost it and a major scrum ensued. Jump to the 2:35 mark of the Youtube clip below and you'll see what I'm talking about.
As I sat there watching, I repeated to myself over and over: “Pacioretty, that was soooo dumb.”
There are certain things everybody knows you just don’t do. You don’t poke a bear with sticks. You don’t throw rocks at bee hives. And you don’t piss off the biggest - and one of the meanest - players in the NHL.
As sure as they sing the national anthem in French at the Bell Centre, he will get you.
And Chara did.
Chara knew very well where the glass began and he knew very well which player was trying to whiz by him in pursuit of the puck. The 22-year-old Pacioretty learned the hard way that the Slovakian giant has a better memory than he thought when he made the decision to try squeeze by Chara on the boards in a 4-0 game.
I’m not saying Chara shouldn’t be suspended. He should be. Say, two games. But spare me the victim routine, Habs fans and media.
Pacioretty set himself up for that back in January and made a poor decision on the ice last night.
There is a lot of talk these days about the lack of respect players show for one another in the NHL. But there’s another major issue here, which I’ve heard Mark Messier discuss, among other former players. And that’s that players aren’t protecting themselves like they used to for some reason.
Pacioretty should have never put himself in that situation with Chara – either on Jan. 8 or March 8. Anybody who knows anything about hockey knows guys like Chara don’t forget when you grease them. And if you want to put that theory to the test like Pacioretty did, hey, it’s your face.