cause4alarm 7 Report post Posted May 14, 2007 A responsible hockey player and decent human being is obligated to not blindside a player with contact to the head, regardless of whether or not the other player is skating with his head down. It doesn't matter what the rules technically say, if you play hockey for a living and your livelihood depends on it, or if you're in game 7 of the Cup finals. Hitting someone in the head, especially when they have no idea that it's coming, is inherently dangerous and completely reckless. As hockey players, it's not your duty to try to maim your opponents, and even if the rules don't specify otherwise, we still owe some basic level of care to our opponents. Just because the opportunity presents itself, we shouldn't be looking for the chance to injure someone as badly as possible. That's just not hockey anymore at that point.The attitude that AO wasn't obligated to move out the other player's way should be specified. If I were in AO's position, while checking the other guy, I would have made every effort to ensure that I wouldn't be endangering his long-term health if possible. That guy still could have been separated hard from the puck with contact to his stick, gloves, shoulder, or hip--anything but his head.edit: Rereading this, I just realized I sound like I'm implying that Ovechkin is not a decent human being. I don't mean that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GSHL99 0 Report post Posted May 15, 2007 You can clearly see from the camera angle that Ovie's elbow is tucked next to his waist until after the contact, it was a clean hit by North American standards. Thing is European hockey is different, they don't like the rough parts of the game. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eltonno172 0 Report post Posted May 15, 2007 GSHL99, you are wrong, we like the rough parts, but the parts where players get injured suck. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
