TORONTO (Mar. 9) – Let me begin this summation by mentioning the most important aspect of last night’s incident involving Max Pacioretty of the Canadiens and Zdeno Chara of the Bruins: Pacioretty is a good, young player who didn’t deserve what happened to him at the Bell Centre, and my hopes and prayers are with him for a fast and full recovery.
Now, to the hockey play. I’ve watched the hit by Chara more than 20 times on video and have concluded the Bruins’ behemoth unquestionably interfered with Pacioretty. I also believe he was guilty of no more than a minor penalty, and that referees Bill McCreary and Eric Furlatt – both of whom I have immense respect for – overreacted by assessing Chara a major and game misconduct. Pacioretty’s injury, though serious enough to knock him out and difficult to watch on replay, came as a result of incidental contact with the glass-divider near the visitors’ bench. For any of us to believe this was an intentional act by Chara, we’d have to pre-suppose that he adroitly and maliciously planned the hit so that Pacioretty’s noggin would bounce off the padded section of glass, thereby inducing loss of consciousness. This may happen in professional "wrestling" when one grappler pounds the head of his opponent into an iron ring-post, but it doesn’t often occur as a planned act in hockey.
By definition, any act that is neither purposeful nor intentional must be accidental or incidental. As with partial pregnancy, there is no in-between. And, any hockey observer that has watched Chara through the course of his career would understand two things: a) though he plays the game aggressively – a trait that earned him a $10-million contract in free agency a few years ago – he has not garnered a reputation for cheap or rancorous behavior. And, b) any National Hockey League player measuring (in full and sweat-soaked equipment) seven-feet and 280 pounds will occasionally cause an opponent to feel pain. The vast majority of players on the receiving end of a Chara hit are three-quarters-of-a-foot shorter and 50 pounds lighter than him. When he leans on an opponent, his arms and elbows are unavoidably near the level of that player’s head. Combined with the force of a collision, the opponent can be shaken up by what is otherwise considered a routine hockey play.
Such a play often APPEARS cheap and dirty, because of Chara’s unusual size. But, I’m not aware of an addendum, or special section, in the NHL rule-book that outlines behavior for tall and heavy players. That’s the reason most such commodities are in demand – particularly the rare ones, like Chara, that play the game at an extraordinary level. Several weeks back, at the TD Garden in Boston, Chara took Mikhail Grabovski of the Maple Leafs into the end boards ill-naturedly, which is his entitlement as a big defenseman. Grabovski emerged from the collision with all the appearance of a wino… he staggered a few feet, fell down, then re-gained his balance awkwardly. A replay showed that Chara (while bent at the waist) hit Grabovski’s head with his torso… an otherwise routine hockey collision. It isn’t the fault of the Bruins’ defenseman, or the Leafs’ center-man, that a fully erect Grabovski comes up to Chara’s chest line. That is simply the way nature planned it.
Sadly for Max Pacioretty, the collision last night took place where it did. Had the incident happened two or three seconds later, it would have occurred inside the blue-line, along the boards and the high glass. At worst, Pacioretty would have been momentarily stunned by getting hammered into the side-barrier of the rink. Had the puck similarly not been in play, Chara would likely have received a minor penalty for interference, and we’d all be discussing something else today.
In the course of a normally busy NHL night, more than a dozen interference minors are handed out. Any person that scours the game-summaries the following day searching FOR these minor penalties has either been locked up for awhile, or should be in the foreseeable future. Again, this is not to minimize the nature of Pacioretty’s plight. He took a hell of a wallop from the biggest hockey player on earth. But, that player isn’t known for deliberately injuring opponents.
Neither did he plan such an act in this occasion.
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