I do not act like he went out there with the sole purpose of ending lives, but nice strawman there. He went out there with the sole purpose of throwing high, dangerous hits. First and foremost in his mind was not to play the puck if there was the opportunity to hit someone. Now, I don't begrudge a player for playing physically, and I see value in doing so. I do begrudge a player for refusing for years to take responsibility for actions that not only caused injury, but caused suspensions of the player who, for reasons passing understanding, saw no problem with it. There are two kinds of mistakes in this world: the kind you learn from, and the kind you don't. Once you continue to repeat the same "mistakes" without learning from them it becomes obvious that there is intent, so they are no longer mistakes.
You bring up Scott Stevens and Mark Messier, two guys who would have been suspended numerous times in the same era as Torres, but you have no way of knowing if they would have actually learned from it. Torres played during a time when there was much more understanding of the devastating affects of traumatic brain injury. Those guys didn't. Torres had no respect for his fellow players as long as they wore another jersey. Messier didn't either, really, and plenty of people, myself included, call him a dirty player. He just happened to score a **** ton of points and history glosses over his dirty streak. That isn't my fault, and you throwing me in with these unnamed people who seemingly love(d) how Messier played is ridiculous. It doesn't take away my ability and right to call Torres out for his disregard and recklessness, something that was brought out on the ice so often, even after numerous fines and suspensions, that it can no longer be considered to be careless. It can only be considered to be intentionally and unnecessarily violent, which is saying something in the world of hockey. By all means, defend the guy. I can only assume you're a Sharks fan, and I know a few Sharks fans around here like to defend him. That's fine (though the favorite refrain out of San Jose and in defense of him there for a while was "he's played [insert a time that was laughably short] without a suspension, so he's changed!"). It doesn't mean he deserves another chance to show he has learned absolutely nothing, and it doesn't mean that he was a very talented player who decided it was more appropriate to drive shoulders into people's faces and leave his skates to vicious, predatory hits well after medical evidence was readily available to show just how damaging those kinds of idiotic plays could actually be. Quite simply, any positive result on the ice was not worth the risk.
And since you seem to like to exaggerate things wildly, please don't try to spin this into me being against hitting - I'm against the unnecessary ******** Torres brought all too often. In fact, do me a favor and take your baseless exaggerations elsewhere. Thanks.
