Watch the NHL's own rule 48 video. There is an entire section on legal hits that involve head contact and Rome's isn't illegal by those standards. 1/2 second late is all I can see that is wrong with it according to the rules.
It's no surprise those who are rooting [or live in] Vancouver think the hit was clean and legit. Glad to see Rome get what he deserved. Let's hope Burrows screws up and gets what he should've deserved from the biting incident..
Well I'm surprised. I suppose it was foolish of me to expect the NHL to not shoot from the hip.
What's his last name again?
'nuff said.
Apparently the NHL has an unwritten rule (not in the rulebook... I checked) that a hit must be made within 1/2 second or 15 frames of video. This one was very close to 1 second, so it is by their definition late.
The NHL also has a video of what is a legal hit and you may make contact with a player's head so long as it isn't the primary point of contact. In this case the vast majority of Rome's arm was in Horton's chest. There looks to be some shoulder-head contact but this much is explicitly allowed by the NHL. The unfortunate part is when Horton's head hits the ice as he falls.
If that hit happened 1/2 second earlier, it'd be 100% legal.
Shannahan? :hmm:
I think if there was bias in favor of the Bruins, Burrows would have been suspended for biting.
If it had been a Sedin hitting someone like Peverley, there probably wouldn't be a suspension. Chara on Pacioretty, no suspension. Rome on Horton, suspension. Marchand on Kesler, suspension.
Ovechkin gets away with murder all year.
To be honest though, the suspension is probably also partially motivated by the fact that they want to keep this incident from affecting the rest of the playoffs. If Rome's in, he's a target. By suspending him, you keep that aspect out of the game, at least the majority of it anyways. I'm alright with it for this reason, but I would also like to see some more consistency with the rules on this, even if it means kicking Ovechkin out for a few games.
While I'd like to see a good SCF with Horton in it, the fact that he's out and Rome is too is probably a net benefit to the Canucks. Hamhuis will be back soon (hopefully), and the Canucks still have two NHL ready defensemen in Ballard (who should be playing anyways IMO) and Tanev who can easily step in. Losing Horton is a pretty big blow to the Bruins.
"We just said, 'Stay with it, do it for [Horton]' and you saw the results," Dennis Seidenberg said.
...
The Bruins award a vintage jacket to the most valuable player after wins. It was hanging in Horton's stall after the game.
You must be a huge homer or something if you think Ovechkin is out to hurt people and should be suspended. Please name one player he's even knocked out of a game this season. Oh wait, you can't. Because it. didn't. happen. The only questionable hit he's had in his entire career was on Gonchar (a good friend of his outside of hockey) with the knee on knee that knocked him out of the playoffs. Yes, Ovi does leave his feet but he's not headhunting and is penalized appropriately (see Tampa series who made him pay on the power play). Haters gonna hate.
Glad Rome got 4 games for his dirty late hit. Not that it matters much, because Rome is a nobody and Horton is a star. However, Boston gets the better of this and Rome will be the goat if they lose this series. Boston now has something to rally around whereas before they looked like lethargic college players who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with their SOG.
We might have ourselves a series now.
Are you kidding me? His elbow was tucked into Hortons jaw! If you can't see that, you're blinded by homerism.
It's probably because Chara and Horton are stars, and Rome and Pacioretty are plugs. There's no other substantive difference.
Ovechkin jumps at hits, hits high, and got a whopping $2500 fine for a slew foot. I'm not saying he should get expelled from the league, but a suspension once in a while would be apt. He's a repeat offender too and has been disciplined multiple times by the league, including the 2 game suspension for his hit on Campbell. Yet it isn't enough and she shows no sign of stopping.
Chara's hit on Pacioretty definitely deserved a suspension, especially considering Mike Murphy's two reasons for suspending Rome: It was late, and the extent of the injury. The hit on Pacioretty was also late, and it fractured several vertebrae. No suspension.
This has nothing to do with homerism and everything to do with whether the hitter or the injured player are a star or a plug.
If it had been Peverley on Sedin, there'd be a suspension. If it had been Sedin on Peverley, there wouldn't be a suspension. It goes both ways.
For the record, I don't have a problem with this being a 4 game suspension, so long as similar hits are always dealt with in the same way, regardless of names.
Ovechkin doesn't elbow to the head and never has, and last I checked, hitting high is legal as long as it's with the shoulder.
The Campbell suspension from last year wasn't even a hit, it was a push into the boards at high speed. Players shove each other every game, and it wasn't for dirty headhunting like you describe (he jumps high at players!). That wouldn't even be a suspension in the playoffs, Richards/Connolly was a prime example. Proof:
Ovi's push:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb6EfttNhGI
Richards' push:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SHMEVwHuG4
Ovi's push just knocked the wind out of the guy, and I think it was a questionable suspension. Should have only been a major. If that's the worst you can find on Ovi, then your argument is very weak.
Chara on MaxPax, definitely agree. It was late and it was flagrant, and I'm still salivating at seeing what Montreal will do next season in retaliation. They haven't forgetten, you can bet on that. But like others have said, playoff suspensions are a whole nother beast. It's more of an eye for an eye, as in you take their player out for an entire series on something dirty then they're not going to let you off easy. If the player hit is ok, then no suspension (see Bolland's hit on Bieksa, Richards hit above). The league can claim that it's not affected by whether a player gets knocked out of a series/season but we all know it's horseshit (one thing I actually agree with Don Cherry on). In the playoffs, anyway.
Someone pointed this play out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxLs-g9lPEc&feature=player_embedded
Ryder on Blair Jones in the ECF (so like 2 weeks ago). Jones didn't have the puck and never did, Ryder turned and saw him AND jumped. No suspension. This is freaking BS.
Again, I don't care if you want to suspend Rome, but you can't suspend him and NOT suspend Ryder on a play like this.
That didn't really look like a hit so much as a collision. They both turned toward each other at the same time and I think Ryder's jump was a poor attempt to avoid the collision, not to hit. If he wanted to hit him, don't you think it would have been a lot more effective to drop his shoulder and hit him head on rather than a glancing shot with his hip?
It kind of reminds me of the Steckel/Crosby collision in that a player's natural reaction to an impending collision can make it look like they intended to cause the collision. But some Penguins homers actually think that was an intentional hit.
And another:
Jamie McGinn on Aaron Rome WCF game 3
Rome was out 3 games with an injury after that hit. No suspension...
"I thought it was a late hit," NHL Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy said, addressing the media in Boston. "I thought that the body was contacted. But I also thought that the head was hit. It caused a serious injury to Nathan Horton. So the key components are the late hit, which I had it close to a second late. We have our own formula at NHL Hockey Operations for determining late hits, and it was late. We saw the seriousness of the injury with Nathan on the ice last night.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=565138BOSTON -- The Vancouver Canucks disagree with the NHL's decision to suspend Aaron Rome for the rest of the Stanley Cup Final for his tardy hit on Nathan Horton that left the Boston winger with a concussion.
"It was a little bit late, but anybody that's played this game knows that you have to make a decision in a fraction of a second," Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said. "He's engaged in the hit. I don't know how the League could come up with that decision really."
...
"He passes the puck and Romer steps up on him," Henrik Sedin said. "It's not like it's the blind side. I think the guy didn't even know he was there. I thought it was a good hit."
Will Rome be let on the ice to hoist the cup if the Cs win?
To make things worse, we have morons like Vignault and Sedin opening their big fat mouths about to give Boston even more motivation:
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=565138
Morons. No, it wasn't a little late, it came at twice the allowable time to finish a check after a guy passes the puck. They shouldn't even comment on it to the media if they were smart, now they look like fools. Just stfu and focus on Game 4 like real men are supposed to act, as in "It's behind us, I don't think anything more needs to be said on the matter. We are focusing on the next game.".