I agree. Anything less than 4 games is too easy. It should be 4 at the MINIMUM and probably more than that. After seeing replays it looks really bad. I think intent is irrelevant. A lot of times it’s hard to discern and people good at it can hide it.
Not to mention Chara is HUGE. Even if he didn’t intend any hits, he should be careful because the sheer impact would be much greater than a lot of hockey players.
SportsNet announcers mentioned that the Canucks should take a long look around, since this was their last game ever at Jobing.com Arena. 
You really aren’t considering how fast this game is. Chara had well under a second to make a decision. Do you really think that he had time to see the stanchion and line Pacioretty up to hit it? Not a chance. He saw that Pacioretty had a step on him and tried to throw him into the boards to slow him down. Anywhere else on the ice it would have turned out fine(other than Chara would have received an interference penalty. Probably. You never can tell with today’s refs)
This is so incredibly backwards it’s breathtaking. Intent is everything. It’s the outcome that’s irrelevant, whatever Colin Campbell says.
After Bertuzzi jumped Moore I said that the NHL should have suspended Moore for his earlier hit (to the head) on Marcus Naslund. Hopefully the NHL did learn something and does suspend Chara, even for just 4 games. I would hope that would take any motive for vengeance away.
Gotta agree with Rysto, It all happened pretty fast. Futhermore, the only person to blame is the idiot who designed the extended glass / stanchion that caused this.
That was a totally legal hit, even under today’s rules.
You aren’t really considering the fact that you don’t make it to the NHL - let alone play in the league for so many years - without knowing how dangerous that area of the boards are and without knowing just how vulnerable a player is in that area. My husband only played until he was 14 - and in leagues that didn’t allow hitting!- and he damn well knew how dangerous that area was.
I’ll grant that Chara didn’t “line Pacioretty up” to hit the stanchion, but he sure as hell knew it was there, even if he’ll say he didn’t see it. Everyone knows it’s there!!! It was a late hit, on a player without the puck, in an area where the player was vulnerable. Nevermind that the video also shows, as I said, a forward push towards the head area.
You’re also not considering the fact that Chara has been on Pacioretty’s ass since that arrogant but harmless little push Patches gave him after the GWG two games ago. Chara hounded Patches all last game, and was going after him in last night’s game as well. You really think there wasn’t an element of “I’ll get revenge for that “disrespect”” to Chara’s actions?
Put it all together and you have the biggest player in the league (6’9, 255 lbs officially) chasing around an average sized player (6’2, 196 lbs officially), after harassing him for 1.5 games worth of playing time, and laying a late hit involving a hit to the head on that player in the most dangerous and vulnerable area of the ice.
Early reports are that Pacioretty has suffered a severe concussion, and a possible neck injury.
NOT an accident, though yeah, fine, I’ll grant that Chara probably wasn’t thinking “let’s see if I can decapitate him.”
The NHL is weasling and only conducting a hearing by phone anyways. 2-3 games max, which is a fucking joke.
This literally makes me sick to my stomach.
Sorry for the double post, but I’ve just read that Chara claimed Pacioretty leaned out and jumped towards the glass. Way to blame the victim, :rolleyes:
Sick.
I’m finding it difficult to wrap my head around the fact that you’re actually arguing for dirty players in the league.
Every team has homers who refuse to see anything a person associated with their favorite organization does as wrong, no matter how obviously wrong it is to everyone not emotionally invested in the team.
To the point: he still brings negative publicity to the team. And not every team has the star power of a Crosby to compensate.
And, really? I list several things, not the least of which is that dirty players can cause injury and potentially death, and you try to dispute minor points about player suspensions hurting the team because the League is inconsistent and anecdotal evidence about how a thug from Pittsburgh doesn’t hurt the ratings of the most televised team in the nation?
It was an unfortunate outcome for sure, but I don’t think there was any malicious intent by Chara.
I would put money on this being made up by some Montreal fan.
Yay Canucks! Up to 95 points with the Phoenix win last night 
Also, its looking more and more like Phoenix will be moving to Winnepeg. The fact that Bettman held a press conference to discuss the complications seems like he’s getting ready for it as much as possible.
This is what Paul Bissonnette says about moving to Winnipeg. Pretty funny but likely true assessment.
From the Article:
At least one member of the Phoenix Coyotes wouldn’t mind a move to Winnipeg — because of the girls.
Paul Bissonnette, a soon-to-be 26-year-old from Welland, Ont., told reporters in Phoenix there would be advantages to leaving Arizona.
“It would be exciting to be the team that went back to Canada,” Bissonnette told the Arizona Republic. “We’d be treated like gods. The weather is awful, but you know that, and it’s like everything would be opposite in Canada.”
That’s when a teammate asked Bissonnette about the women.
“The girls are undercover hot in Canada,” he said. “Besides, we’d be the only game in town. I’m sure we’d have first dibs.”
Bissonnette, known as the Coyotes’ social-network specialist, with 55,000 followers on Twitter, was once told by the team to tone it down for his edgy tweets.
You’d lose your bet. I’m on an old iPod so cant give you the link now but google “chara quote” and the current prohockeytalk.NBC.com mentions the quote.
Very classy though, to blame habs fans for it.
Pacioretty has a non displaced 4th vertebrea fracture.
Hockey players aren’t supposed to do things that injure other players. Of course if a player deliberately tries to injure another one, it warrants a suspension. But a hit that isn’t deliberately intended to injure, but still causes a major injury is still a reckless act, and also warrants a suspension.
I fail to see how anyone can defend violence in hockey, as is done in this thread, but apparently in some parts of Canada it’s considered “part of the game” and acceptable. Whatever.
And hey, mnemosyne, I’m sure you wouldn’t complain if Chara was on your team! :rolleyes: All this talk of goon squads sounds like sour grapes to me. :rolleyes: And there’s nothing wrong with the league and the discipline it dishes; if Chara gets one or two games suspension or even nothing at all it’s just that he didn’t do anything wrong. :rolleyes: After all, “it’s a tough game to ref”!
Busy week for Bruins apologists.
What are you talking about? I’ve been calling for Chara to be made an example of. It was a reckless thing to do and he should be punished harshly. I don’t care if he meant to hurt anyone. The only way these hits will go away is if people are punished regardless of the outcome of bad hits.
The quote from Chara was:
I fail to see how you can label this anything but a very unfortunate set of circumstances. It happens. It sucks. But there was no malicious intent. No one wants to see any athletes in any sport get hurt. No one wants to see decent players persecuted for an unfortunate set of circumstances either.
That is bullshit.
No. It’s the right call.