Forget these supposedly illegal blind-side hits. Apparently, all you need to do to get the attention of the NHL these days is earn two game misconducts within 41 games of one another, and *poof* suspension! That's the formula Dallas Stars defenseman Stephane Robidas was following when he earned a one-game ban on Wednesday thanks to a boarding call on Anaheim Duck Matt Beleskey on Tuesday night. The hit can be seen at this link in the highlight package for the game.
The first misconduct was earned last season on March 16 in a game against the San Jose Sharks in which Robidas hit Ryane Clowe from behind. The two plays were very different hits, but yielded the same boarding penalty, which is called when a player checks "an opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown violently in the boards", as per the official NHL rulebook.
For those keeping score at home, Los Angeles Kings forward Dustin Brown did not receive a suspension for his textbook illegal-check-to-the-head hit on the Minnesota Wild's Antti Miettinen on Monday, because it apparently lacks the half-impaired vision necessary to see for itself that Brown hit Miettinen in the head, (not that the head was targeted, but that it was just the point of contact, which is stated in the rule) but it was able to suspend Robidas for a more borderline call on a technicality.
To be clear, no one should have a problem with Robidas getting suspended. He broke the rules and as such he should have to sit. Fine. But so did Brown and yet the league can't seem to find a standard of consistency in enforcing its own rules that bests that of the batches of cookies baked by a seventh-grade home-economics student. And the league wonders why it keeps getting burned. I would say this past week has played out a lot like amateur hour at the local comedy club, but the fact of the matter is that this has been going on for much longer... and it's much funnier.
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