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Loading ...So I get home from work last night, and what do I find in my inbox but a link to this lovely video that’s been played like 2349827432 times all over cyberspace:
I had to go back and watch it a couple times to see where Ovechkin got the fighting major, seeing as how he was kinda blindsided by Fargo’s Finest and all. As for the hit itself? Ill-timed, but not delivered with ill intent.
Ignoring the blatant homerism of the Crapitals’ broadcast team (especially that freakish Breughelsian quasit Craig Laughlin) in that clip wasn’t hard to do–all I had to do was turn the sound off–but I am forced to conclude that the hit wasn’t so much dirty (which implies malice) as it was a serious case of poor timing (door being opened) coupled with poor judgement (Ovechkin attempting to rub out Briere away from the play) and a not-inconsiderable dash of embellishment from the Sabres’ emo-kid co-captain.
What really makes this whole thing laughably sad (aside from SabresNation screaming for Ovechkin to have his head taken off the next 9328472947 times the Caps and Sabres meet) is the dollar amount of the fines handed out. $100? I could pay that. The League needs to get on the stick with updating their fines so that they’re actually punishing the fined players rather than simply asking them to cover a dinner at Les Halles.
Of course, this all gets back to the sad inability of the NHL to be able to dish out any kind of real justice–Colin Campbell is, once again, a clownshoe (and his son is a douche)–and that’s a subject for another post.
Just my opinion, of course.
I was at that game, about a mile-and-a-half above the Sabres’ bench, so I saw the incident develop. Make no mistake, Ovechkin knew what he was doing (from my angle, it looked like he got a bit of an elbow up as well), and though Briere did dramatize it, it was worth at least a 10-minute misconduct to Ovechkin if not the match penalty.
As a part-time, half-arsed Caps fan (hey, I live here), the only thing that bugged me about the Caps picking up Brashear was the worry that Ovechkin might develop a sense of impunity and start going for the little chicken-crap plays like this, over-dramatizing hits like the Staal/Gleason incident in the home opener, and generally pulling the kind of stuff that will sooner or later get Don Cherry suspended for making another Euro crack. Last year, one of the things I really liked about the guy was that he played a gutsy game, not just cruising in the manner of quite a few snipers of every nationality. He’s losing some of that this year, and it’s to his detriment.
Who’s Colin Campbell’s son?
Greg Campbell. Plays for the Florida Panthers.
Oh. I was wondering more if you had a specific reason for loathing him.
It’s a long and sordid story–but trust me, the dude is a douche.
It boggles my mind that you can scream and moan over Orpik’s hit on Cole and then see Ovechkin do essentially the same thing –if not worse — and then play it off like briere’s a diver because no serious injury occurred. Laughable. Yeah, Briere embellishes at times, but he is certainly not alone in that respect –and when another player is the victim of a gutless, potentially career-ending hit, i would expect a fan of the game to call it what it is and not trivialize it by dragging the animosity between your rapidly sinking team and the people’s champion of the 2005-2006 season into the analysis. Orpik’s a Buffalo boy and certainly no one around here was celebrating his actions when he drilled Cole, although that hit was arguably much more legal than Ovie’s hit on Briere. I thought you were bigger than that. No, wait, I guess I didn’t. Go Sabres. I breathlessly await your smartass reply.
Oh right, I forgot that Alex Ovechkin being an idiot and dinking Daniel Briere in the back as he’s headed to the bench is the same thing as Brooks Orpik pile-driving Erik Cole head-first into the boards.
As I said: ill-timed, ill-considered, but not delivered with ill intent.
And I’d love to know where I called Daniel Briere a diver–not that I expect a cogent response.
Hehe. The People’s Champion.
I gleefully ignored that tidbit, since I am not a wrestling fan (as “BK” obviously is).