Both these plays happened a short while back but I've been meaning to comment on this.....the WHL has recently suspended a couple of players for what in my opinion are clean hits.
First was a much-publicized hit by Brandon's Ryley Miller on Everett's Kellan Tochkin on December 8. You can see the video of that hit here. A less publicized hit was one by Adrian Van de Mosselaer of Edmonton on Brad Hoban of Swift Current on December 15. Video of that hit is here.
Both Miller and Van de Mosselaer got two game suspensions for those hits. I don't see why though....Miller was just a good clean open ice hit on a guy going through center ice with his head down. In Van de Mosselaer's case, watch Hoban at 1:03 - he sees the hit coming and instead of doing something about that, he turns his head and shoulders back towards the boards to look for the puck.
In both cases, if the recipients of the hits had protected themselves and kept their heads up, they probably don't get hurt on what are otherwise clean hits. Near as I can tell, the only reason anyone got suspended in either case is because somebody got hurt.....IMO that's not good enough. Clean hits are clean hits whether somebody gets hurt or not. Have we gone so far in trying to clean up dirty hits and head shots that we're now starting to take hitting out of the game altogether?
2 comments:
the hit on Hoban sure looks like interference and boarding to me. Borderline CFB as well.
Van de Mosselaer got 5 minutes for boarding in that game, guess the ref didn't think it was clean.
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