Badminton is a good sport, not too scary but I'm warning you, they do hit the shuttlecock hard at times. If you don't like hitting GTFO and watch something that doesn't frighten you.
I'm getting bored of "hockey fans" wanting to implement non-hitting rules.
And I'm getting bored of "hockey fans" who are utterly blind when it comes to adhering to the actual rules of the game. Or who think a flying ellbow aimed at someone's head has anything to do with hitting. A hockey fan should be aware of what the purpose of a hit is (hint: seperating the opponent from the puck) and what is required for a hit to be legal (another few hints, all taken from the rulebook as it has existed for ages: the target must be a valid target for a hit, you cannot target the head, you aren't allowed to charge, you aren't allowed to jump into it, you aren't allowed to use your ellbow, the list goes on and on). It is the responsibility of the player who makes the hit to make sure that he is a) allowed to make the hit, and b) is making it in such a way that it adheres to all the rules. This one didn't adhere to quite a lot of them.
There is absolutely nothing tough about what Trouba attempted here, nor is there anything tough about defending those sort of hits. Nor does toughness require such hits. What is however a kindergarten-level attempt of making an argument, is pretending that people who ask for the rules to be applied want "non-hitting rules", because absolutely no one has made such an argument. It's nothing more than a strawman, and a rather pitiful one at that.
Intent to what? If you mean intent to injure no, because they cannot prive he intended to injure with the hit. Swinging a stick at someone's head? Yeah, because there is no other way to interpret that action.
Um, yes, you very much can. The idea that you must be able to directly infer what the player tried to achieve for it to be attempt to injure is completely asinine. That's not how the rule works at all. The decison, just like basically any other, is at the discretion of the referee. If the ref is of the opinion that the player tried to injure his opponent, than that is enough. They don't need a psychological examination to establish whether the player truly planned to injure his opponent. It is enough that the attempt was made in such a way that the ref thought it accepted an injury of the opponent. The whole purpose of the rule is for situations like these.
Pretending that someone should not be held accountable just because by sheer luck nothing bad happened, is not how any sort of judgement works. What matters if the act, not the outcome. You don't get the benefit just because of pure luck. A bad act is still a bad act, it doesn't miraculously turn into being okay just because of a luc,ky outcome.
In this case, Trouba attempted a "hit" that was so far away from playing out according to the rules, that there is no way to suggest it was in any way a normal attempt to hit. There is no way to interprete his act in any other way than as an attempt to injure. In no way, shape or from can his move to throw out his ellbow towards the opponent's head be anything but an attempt to injure. He failed to target the player properly, and then tried to circumvent the rules by making use of his ellbow, in full awareness of what that would do to the opponent's head. None of that had anything to do with attempting a clean hit anymore. No, he failed to make a hit, and tried to make up for it through illegal means. Not punishing someone who regularly makes these sort of plays, based on the nonsensical idea that you cannot punish him because his attempt to injure failed, leads to one thing and one thing only: behaviour in the way of Matt Cooke and Raffi Torres. But hell, lets scramble some more brains, and then throw the book at someone after it has been way too late, instead of taking a firm stance right away, thus. What could possibly go wrong?
Why any fan of hockey would think that doing someone that is to the detriment of the game is preferable to something that is good for everyone, is beyond me. There is no advantage ot letting Trouba act like that. There is however a huge advantage in making sure that his victims don't get injured, and that he himself gets back on track to make good hits instead of being all over the place. If you actually cared about hitting, you'd be dead set on making sure that these botched attempts would be punished harshly. The best way to guarantee that hitting remains a vital part of the game (not that there is much of a danger of that changing, no matter how much some people whine about it for years), is to make sure that good clean hits are used as an example, and bad attempts get punished. Because then, and only then, do players actually try to get it right. The more you defend even the worst attempts of a hit, no matter how illegal they are by the rules, the more YOU are doing a disservice to hitting, and the more likely will it become that bigger changes will be made.
