Suckers and Their Punches
Take a look at the Coyotes’ Nick Boynton sucker punching Steve Bernier and drawing him into a fight. Boynton was suspended for one game and his coach (somebody named Wayne Gretzky) was fined $10,000 for sending his brawler onto the iced in the final minutes of a blowout.
This kind of thing drives me crazy because it makes NHL fighting look so bad. The truth is (and I’ve only come around recently) NHL fights are a great thing. In the NFL, if a guy has been hitting you after the play or blocking dirty there’s nothing you can do. The same goes for an MLB hitter who just had a fastball whiz by his head or an NBA player who’s had his kidney’s tenderized by an opponents’ elbows. Any retaliation will cost their team dearly.
That’s not the case in the NHL. If a guy has been getting facewashed after every whistle or slashed all night long, he can drop the gloves and slug it out without hurting his team. It’s really quite awesome when you think about it. So shame on you Nick Boynton. If Bernier wanted to voluntarily fight you, that would have been fine. But don’t instigate it with a sucker punch.
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