Atlanta Thrashers prospect Patrice Cormier will not get a criminal record, despite admitting to doing something illegal. Kind of makes you think, huh?
On Tuesday, after pleading guilty to assaulting Quebec Rempart Mikael Tam last season, Cormier received an absolute discharge, allowing him to travel between Canada and the United States, a requirement of his profession, which, apparently, is that of a head-hunter, and not the human-resources kind.
Now, normally, it would be cool to give someone the benefit of the doubt, like Detroit Red Wing Todd “Big Bird-Brain” Bertuzzi, after he broke Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore’s neck in 2004. It’s become clear since then that Bertuzzi isn’t a dirty player, just a dumb one... a really, really dumb one. However, in the case of Cormier, there’s no such luck, most notably due to the fact that the hit on Tam represented his third dirty hit in about a month, as the below video will show. Excuse the French. The translation to each slide is below the video. For just the Tam hit, please visit our affiliate site, GetReal Hammered.
Slide one: Patrice Cormier is a good hockey player, but he throws too many dirty hits.
Slide two: He threw three elbows to the head in less than a month... bravo (no need to translate bravo, right?)
Slide three: The first one took place at the World Junior Hockey Championships on December 20, 2009.
Slide four: The second took place during the same tournament two days later.
Slide five: It all culminated on January 17, 2010, when he delivered the most vicious hit in QMJHL history.
Slide six: The victim was Mikael Tam.
Slide seven (after Tam hit): Among other injuries, Tam suffered serious head trauma.
Slide eight: Tam is thankfully alright now.
Slide nine: Now, the only thing left to do is hope that Cormier receives a punishment equal to the pain and suffering he has caused (some editorializing on my part, here).
Cormier received a year-long suspension by the QMJHL, but, after being drafted by the New Jersey Devils, he is now a member of the Atlanta Thrashers organization. What’s funny about that is, before being a part of the Ilya Kovalchuk deal last year, Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello said he had no problem with the hit. Just one more reason not to be able to take him seriously, I suppose. Aside from the initial Kovalchuk deal, it’s important to take everything Mr. Lamoriello says and does with a grain of salt. His exact words were: “There is no issue from my end of it.” Apparently enough of an issue to eventually send him packing, though.
The takeaway from all of this? If a player isn’t good enough to play for Lamoriello, who has reached out to players big (Scott Stevens) and small (Mattias Tedenby), young and old (Brian Rolston), greedy (Kovalchuk) and selfless (Anton Volchenkov), good (Zach Parise) and not-so-good (Dainius Zubrus), and finally clean (Travis Zajac) and not-so-clean (Adam Mair), then there’s a problem.
One can argue that Cormier was just part of a trade and that he’s not necessarily that dirty of a player, but the evidence speaks for itself. He deserves a fair shot at a hockey career, but clearly he’s already burned it thanks to the numerous cheap ones he’s delivered over the course of a very short career that cannot be short enough.
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