I don’t condone violence, and I am not advocating it, however, being a huge Pittsburgh Penguin fan when former Penguin star Jaromir Jagr comes to town, a little hitting couldn’t hurt.. or could it?
Fighting, hard hits, cross check and scoring are part of hockey. The fighting has slowed down long gone are the days of enforcers or goons that just fight (which sucks by the way). But the hitting is still around and anyone is fair game.
Jaromir Jagr has always been one of the hardest to knock off of his feet. His training you see has always been working in the off-season on the farm, His thighs are massive. But time is slowly taking it’s toll on the 42 year old star of the New Jersey Devils.
Jagr and the Devils played the Penguins on December 12.. and well. this is what happened…
http://youtu.be/foCJqUxXhpk
It was in the final minutes of the second period Robert Bortuzzo of the Pittsburgh Penguins destroyed former Pittsburgh Penguin, and currently New Jersey Devil Jaromir Jagr with one of the best hits all season.
You could hear a mixed reaction from the crowd, from those yelling obscenities at Jagr, to fans who clearly feared for the health of a Penguins legend.
When a star leaves the team that made him famous and a household name, the hate is always there. I mean he left us. I used to be friends with Jagr, and I have to say I was one of those that were screaming”HIT HIM, GET JAGR” but never at the expense of someone’s health and all around welfare.
I have watched the hit again and again. And though it looks like a hard clean hit, being as though it is “Jaromir Jagr famed hockey superstar” of course there are going to be consequences. When I say clean, it the past before the new NHL regime of hitting and icing being different and wanting higher scoring games, things have gotten much more cautious. Speed and size of players have increased, and the rules had to change and be adapted for the “world”. Long gone are the days of stars not being hit, and goons protecting them, as they had in the past when the likes of Brendan Shanahan (before his job with the NHL) was a fighter and scorer delivering punishing blows in a fight, marking up his pretty face to give it the character that NHL players for decades had worn with pride. But I am off the subject, slightly.. Let’s just get to the ruling..
It took a day for the NHL to rule on any suspensions. The NHL’s ruling was to suspend Bortuzzo of the Penguins two games for the incident, and here is the video of what they had to say.
