Thursday, December 29, 2011

Who needs Shanny?

Shanny's doing a good job in my opinion and I think his role is a very important one but obviously the Boston Bruins don't need him to stick up for them.  Do you think Shanny should or will penalize Raffi Torres for this hit on Andrew Ference last night?  Doesn't matter, I suspect, in the eyes of the Bruins...Adam McQuaid took care of it already.  Just taking care of our own. 

You would think Raffi would have learned his lesson by now, particularly given how things went during last year's Stanley Cup Finals.
Love 'em or hate 'em, you know if you screw with the Bruins, they'll beat you on the score board and kick your ass if you deserve it, unflinchingly.

9 comments:

Brent said...

Shouldn't have even been a penalty on Torres. Contact was shoulder to shoulder. Even listen to the Bruins Colour Commentator. He says that the hit was shoulder to shoulder then Ference's head got hit. McQuaid is a tough guy who flies off the handle too much.

Zebster said...

Your love of soccer is really starting to show through. Torres went for the head and got the shoulder on the way. I find it amusing you used half of the announcer's statement to defend what you'd be raving about if it involved any other team, leaving out the half where he calls it a dirty hit.
As for McQuaid, he stands up for his teammates, something Montreal and Montreal South don't understand, to their detriment.
Shouldn't have been a penalty? Your bias against the Bruins is definitely showing through because you're the only one who thinks so. But be that as it may, as my post says, the Bruins don't need defending. They are the only team in the league who would come out on top if there weren't refs or Shanny. How much is "flying off the handle too much?"
Finally, I'll bring up Marc Savard one more time...

Brent said...

No, if Torres was a Bruin and did it to a Coyote, I wouldn't have said anything because it was a legal hit. Maybe interference if you are calling the game real tight. But if intent is not a defense against hitting the head cleanly, then intent when aiming for the head and hitting the shoulder instead should also not be used.

The announcer says that that is a hit that the NHL wants out of the game, but then comes back and says that Torres hits him in the shoulder and then hits his head. I just went for the last thing that he said. The NHL doesn't want hits shoulder to shoulder out of the NHL, that is what they want.

If you look at any Bruins scrum that McQuaid is out on the ice for, he is always the third man in. It doesn't matter if the Bruin is defending himself, beating on the opponent, or is dazed and confused. McQuaid is always looking for trouble. A great teammate to have, but a pain in the ass otherwise.

Marc Savard was leveled by a cheap shot. Matt Cooke should have been suspended and not allowed to play for the rest of the year. But it doesn't even factor into this conversation. After all, I could start to list the 6 Hurricanes this year that have been out due to concussions and most of them were hits that were way worse than the Torres hit. It doesn't matter.

Zebster said...

Head hunting is head hunting, whether the hunter gets the shoulder in the process or not. If Shanny says that wasn't the case, I'll say I'm wrong. Will you? If Shanny says it was a dirty hit, then you were wrong that it wasn't even a penalty hit.
We'll disagree about McQuaid and in this instance he wasn't third man in. There was no scrum until McQuaid started pounding on Torres.
My point about Savard was that the Bruins, despite losing their best player to a dirty hit, went on and won the Cup.

Anonymous said...

This is how you play hockey. I miss the 80s and early 90s when this was how you took care of business.

Zebster said...

I heard there was no punishment for Torres but I can't find anything official to see what Shanny had to say about the incident. Like I said, it doesn't matter to the Bruins since McQuaid took care of it. But watch this hit from Torres from last night and tell me there was no intent. Does that change your mind about his intent on the hit to Ference?
http://www.nesn.com/2011/12/raffi-torres-takes-out-jan-hejda-with-second-head-shot-in-as-many-nights-video.html

Brent said...

Raffi Torres is just an older Brad Marchand.

Zebster said...

Yikes, let's hope not.

Brent said...

The offensive production for Marchand is better but the similarities in their play in their first couple of years in the league are uncanny.

I'm not saying this to be a jerk, but he does remind me of Torres when Torres came into the league. It's just that Marchand plays on a team of more talented individuals.