If you roll back the tape on recent cross checking suspensions, from Matthews to Meier and even Myers in the same game… I just don’t see how the physical mechanics of what McDavid did is comparable to those guys. He has a quick reactionary glancing blow, vs. A calculated front-on high-leverage full-energy connection directly to the center of the face with no mitigating or confounding circumstances or distractions. Also, critically important: during the play, in the middle of an illegal interference “scrum”, vs. AFTER the play, assault with a weapon outside of the “hockey game”.
and McDavid gets MORE games in the suspension? Garlands head is also chest-height (stick height), fwiw. Hard to cross check him in the shoulder or the chest without ducking down below your knees. Hell, remember when the game was OVER and Pietrangelo raised his stick over his f’ing head and assaulted Draisaitl two-handed? 1 game suspension? This is three? That crosscheck must have really hurt Garland’s feelings, because he looked a little upset afterwards- he might need to go on emotional leave. But physically completely unharmed, because it was a glancing reactionary blow.
Anyway, the actual physical mechanics aside, it’s a bullshit situation and the refs and safety ops and the league in general are f***ing garbage. There is NO WAY McDavid should be going out of his way to help them gouge fans out of millions of dollars in a meaningless non-IIHF tournament mid-season during a cup window for the Oilers. It’s outside his responsibility and below him, ethically. Stand up for yourself and for fair, decent people.
I don’t see any need to get into the weeds of “protect your stars” type rhetorical bullshit. It’s just going to have other fanbases whining about “special treatment”. How about FAIR, EQUITABLE treatment? Can we start there? Then we can worry about “special treatment” for the guy who are selling enough jerseys to bankroll half the league’s basement-dwellers in sub-optimal markets. Seriously, the fact that the org is too weak to stand up on this is disgusting, f*** Katz and all the executives. And our “ambassador” Gretzky is down there polishing Trump’s knob at the inauguration, along with Kane on the active payroll. Meanwhile all this goes unchallenged. Weak ass submissive little twinks IMO.
