Old news by now, but this is footage of Patrice Cormier, the captain of the Canadian World Junior Team, viciously elbowing Mikhail Tam (Apologies for the French play-by-play, I just chose the Youtube clip that got the elbow without too much other stuff in there.)
Cormier is suspended indefinitely pending a review. David Branch, the head honcho of the OHL (Ontario’s equivalent to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League), has already suspended one player for the rest of the season for a cheap shot, which will amount to a lifetime ban, as the suspended player was in his last season of eligibility. The Surete du Quebec (Quebec’s provinicial police) is also looking into this as well.
Patrick Roy, Mikhail Tam’s coach, is calling for Cormier to be thrown out of the league. This may be a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black though, as both of Roy’s sons have been suspended before for nasty on-ice incidents in the Q.
A description for those who can’t or don’t want to watch it (I saw this a couple of days ago)
Tam is coming acros mid-ice with the puck when Cormier leaps off the bench and makes a beeline for Tam. Tam is not fully aware of Cormier, but instead of checking Tam, he literally takes his elbow and smashes Tam right across the face with it…hard annd keeps on skating. Tam falls to the ice bleeding and CONVULSING. He was in the hospital for a while, not sure if he is out yet.
And it is simply one of the dirtiest hits I have ever seen and while Hockey is a physical and it sometimes blurs the line between dirty and clean, this is well over the line and everybody in hockey understands that.
Disgusting play. He didn’t even attempt to hit him with his body; it was all elbow. He should be thrown out of the league. If the Devils want him to go play for their AHL affiliate, I don’t see how that could be stopped but he shouldn’t play another second in the QMJHL.
Also, I’m embarrassed that he was the captain of Team Canada during the World Juniors.
It’s all the sadder because Patrice Cormier is a very talented player who can be successful without playing that style of hockey. More than likely he’ll be suspended for the balance of the season and possibly the playoffs. I have to wonder why he thought it was a good idea? It was clearly premeditated; he had his elbow up way early. It’s not something that helps him, his team, his chances at making the NHL. The same play from his brother would have been just as sad but less surprising since he’s more of a enforcer. From Patrice, it’s just…baffling.
It’s such a vicious hit. I hope the QMJHL follows the OHL’s lead and comes down hard on this - hits like this just shouldn’t happen. That’s not hockey.
Cormier doesn’t even bother pretending to use his shoulder or stay on his feet…a flying elbow to a guy in a vulnerable position across the middle.
An across the board suspension for the rest of the year (so he can’t go run and play somewhere else), and this needs to be noted as a prior offense in case this happens in the AHL/NHL.
I’m by no means a hockey expert and the hit was pretty severe but this doesn’t look vastly different from dozens of other hits you see from time to time. I’m certainly not seeing the “dirtiest play ever” aspect of it. Tam was coming up the middle of the ice and clearly had absolutely no idea about his surroundings. Cormier is coming at him from the front and should have been in plain view. I have to wonder how the hell he was so unaware of the player coming at him. Patrice was on the ice legally, correct? It was a line change and he entered the field of play legally and had he delivered an equally vicious hit to the chest with his shoulder no one would have cared, am I correct? Hell, it probably would have been lauded everywhere.
So, hitting the guy in the face with an elbow is inexcusable and illegal, but there seems to be zero evidence that it premeditated and he didn’t leave his feet. The players are intersecting and Tam swerves at the last second away and Cormier extends his elbow to get contact. Had he not he probably would have missed him entirely based on the path off their skates.
I’m sorry, but this looks to me like a giant over-reaction as a result of the severity of the outcome. I feel terrible for the kid, but painting Cormier as having specifically intended this result is lacking in evidence and is not supported by the video I saw.
Should he be punished for hitting with an elbow in the head? Absolutely, intentional or not that’s a foul and a pretty severe one. Treating the kid like he’s Jeffery Dahmer seems way out of line. I’m sure this isn’t the first elbow to the head in junior hockey, how were those punished?
It’s not an over-reaction over the severity of the outcome because this is what happens when you elbow people in the face. It’s the very reason it’s not allowed. Not every elbow results in convulsions and brain damage but if you make them a regular occurrence you will get this as a more frequent result. Cormier made no attempt to reach Tam with his body. When Tam moved out of the way he had every reason to not expect an elbow, stick, or anything else to the head. The puck was gone anyhow so anything Patrice does at that point falls under the category of finishing your check which is usually let go. Finishing your check with an elbow isn’t acceptable.
I am in no way defending Cormier, but holy fuck one of the cardinal rules of hockey is to keep your head up. Especially if you are cutting across the middle like that. Scott Stevens made his career by ruining people who did the same thing.
But like I said I am not defending Cormier in any way and his QMJHL days should be done, and this should be in his NHL ‘file’.
Blatant elbows like that one are pretty rare nowadays. The outcome certain has raised the profile of the hit, but that is very, very dirty even if Tam bounces right back up.
The only reason to bring your elbow up like that is to try and hurt somebody. And it should noted that this isn’t the first elbow Cormier has thrown in the past month; he got away with two pretty bad ones as Canada’s captain at the world juniors in December. Admittedly, that kind of proves your point, but I think that the real lesson is that every league has to stop putting such a heavy weight on the outcome of a hit when weighing the possible punishment. It does no good to give people a slap on the wrist for a dangerous play and only punish them severely if their victim is unlucky. The bad outcomes are so rare that players just aren’t taking the possibility into account.
The difference is that a hit with the shoulder to the chest would knock you down, knock the wind out of you, and at worst, crack a rib. An elbow to the head risks severe neck damage, conceivably to the point of death. This is a specific attempt to injure someone, not just to knock them down. I’m not sure how this is normally punished, but I hope it’s quite severe.
Intention to injure? I don’t see it. I really don’t see it in that clip. I might be wrong, but all of that happened too fast for me, and Cormier just looked to be picking his man. Shit happens in a fast-paced body-contact game.
I don’t think so; I’m not a hockey expert, either, but that looked dirty to me. Hockey is a physical game, no doubt about it, and fans like it that way, but that’s over the line.