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Thornton Ground-and-Pound's Orpik

stetty2

Entry posted by stetty2

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http://youtu.be/qePKiGYqbkY

Shawn Thornton. Remember him? He won a Stanley Cup right here on Vancouver ice. He also ambushed The Province's Tony Gallagher on a Boston sports show. Gallagher did not do a good job defending himself either.

The same Shawn Thornton is now flirting with a Bertuzzi like suspension after his UFC style take down, followed by a ground and pound that knocked the Penguins Brooks Orpik out cold. Orpik required a stretcher to remove his limp body from the ice.

Orpik was standing in a scrum at the whistle when Thornton came up from behind him, grabbed his shoulder and pulled him down before punching his face into the ice.

Don Cherry was quoted on Hockey Night in Canada as saying, "This was not a fight."

Sidney Crosby spoke in the post game scrum, "It's hard to think about hockey when someone gets hurt like that."

In little defence to Thornton, there was a lead up to his reckless behaviour. In the first shift of the game, Orpik hit Bruins forward Loui Eriksson awkwardly, causing Eriksson to leave the game with an apparent head injury.

Crosby also said he also believes the original hit led to the incident. "I think Orp's (Orpik) hit on Eriksson led to what happened with Thornton."

Thornton chased Orpik around the ice trying to fight him, but Orpik wanted nothing to do with the challenger. It was almost 10 minutes after the Orpik hit on Eriksson when Thornton went stupid.

The question is, should Orpik have fought Thornton on the original challenge? Because it would be safe to say, had they fought immediately after the Eriksson hit at the beginning of the game, there wouldn't have been the sucker punch later. In no way am I condoning Thornton's actions, he shouldn't have done what he did.

Should a player have to fight if they make a big hit? I don't think so, hitting is part of the game.

Here is what Bob Mckenzie had to say about it,

"Orpik's hit on Eriksson was a hockey play, could've been a minor for interference, but well within context of game action. Orpik shouldn't necessarily be obliged to answer the bell to Thornton on that hit. It wasn't that egregious."

Regardless of what side you are on, I think we can all agree Thornton will get suspended, and will probably miss the game against the Canucks on December 14th because of it. Mckenzie believes the suspension will range from 6 to double digit games.

Bertuzzi had 20 games for his hit on Moore. The longest suspension in league history was Washington Capitals forward Chris Simon. He stomped on former Canuck Jarko Ruutu's leg while he was with Pittsburgh. Simon also has the second longest suspension of 25 games for his two hander to the face of Ryan Hollweg.

Shawn Thornton, believe it or not, has not been suspended by the NHL previous to this.

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viking mama

Shawn Thornton has not been suspended by the leagiue..previous to this...'cuz he's a Bruin...and used to a lot of suspension dodges just like his teammates Chara, Lucic , Marchand...and the rest. The league is to blame for not setting proper boundaries ...for this particular team. The President of the Board of Governer team! Their entitlements to be overtly violent...exceed everyone else's...& by a long shot. Shanny & his DPS are all )-6 affiliated appointees who cannot be unbiased...especially when it comes to appeasing or taking marching orders from the persons who HIRED them. Thornton has gone well beyond Bertuzzi territory, here. The Bertuzzi/Moore incident was motivated by revenge...but the level of Moore's injurues were caused by a seeries of unfortunate events of which others played a role & participated. Bertuzzi was indirectly responsible for the injuries moore sustained. In this instance THornton is completely responsible for the injury done to Orpik. He has also taken his reputation to the Sean Avery level & clearly put the league in disrepute.But - what should we expect from a player on a team that is given no boundaries, Turf the DPS...elect èm all. A hopefully the other owners & GMs will see that...enough is enough. It`s time for a regime change in the NHL. Topple the traditional cronies who talk of progress & change...but only continue to use every bully tactic possible - to make others the examples ...but not themselves.

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Henrik Kesler

Thornton needs 15+ games, AND forefeiture of his paycheck for the remainder of the season. The only way to stop this nonsense is to hurt players financially in such a way that they take pause before doing crap like this.

Also lost in yesterday's nonsense was that Zac Rinaldo did something very similar against the Stars, but Roussel wasn't hurt so he probably won't even be suspended.

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