More Crock

Courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers (are you really surprised?) and Jesse Boulerice.

Now I'm sure the usual suspects of the Ultimate Fighting on Ice (UFOI) crowd will join the rest of the hand wringing crowd in roundly condemning Boulerice's hit on Ryan Kesler. There will even be a few that will once again insult our intelligence and insist that this has nothing whatsoever to do with fighting.

But as we learned when reading about "The Crock"...er... "Code" this summer the universal "Let's go!" sign is a tap on the shoulder. Any doubt's that Boulerice was trying to "call out" Kesler with a tap on the shoulder? Boulerice even said he was upset with Kesler trying to hit Flyers defenseman Randy Jones which is why Boulerice went after Kesler. (Because we all know that in the rough and tumble sport of hockey where there is nowhere to hide, you absolutely positively cannot hit another player without that player's explicit consent. And even then, it isn't allowed.)

And if you still want to attempt to maintain the innocence of fighting, notice that Boulerice's gloves are almost off after the hit. Boulerice wanted a fight with Kesler but got a little too amped up about calling him out.

Furthermore, Jesse Boulerice isn't any stranger to stick swinging and thuggish play. He was suspended for an entire year in the OHL for a stick swinging incident (he was also charged with assault).

Look folks, follow the tags below, I've said it before and I'll say it again that if you get rid of fighting, you get rid of the fighters and you get rid of this kind of nonsense. It isn't the skill players running around doing this stuff. It is the fighters. It is the thugs.

And now the NHL will for the second time in a month and for the third time in less than year hand down a double digit length suspension. It is pretty clear to me that 20+ games isn't enough of a suspension for these guys. Hades, the most recent suspension, Steve Downie's 20 games, was handed to Boulerice's teammate and even Boulerice's ejection didn't stop another Flyers thug, Ben Eager, from running over Vancouver's backup goaltender Curtis Sanford to set off a line brawl in the final minute of a 8-2 rout the Flyers were winning. It just goes to show you how much the Flyers listen to their coach.

That is of course, if you're gullible enough to believe that John Stevens is upset about this whole thing and said that stuff was no longer needed in a game that was well in hand. Stevens was drafted by the Flyers organization and has spent a considerable amount of time in the organization as a player and coach. Needless to say, I have my doubts about his contrition.

I seriously guess these UFOI people won't be totally happy until somebody gets killed. Even then they'll say, "hey, it's a part of the game, leave it alone."