3 punches: How the Bruins and Penguins helped in further ruining the NHL's reputation as an amiable league

There is a threshold separating a good hard fought physical hockey game from a dirty one.

For example, on December 5th, the Bruins and Montreal Canadians compiled a whopping but still acceptable 6 manpower penalties only 1 of which assessed due to major malicious actions on the part of a member of the game. A total of 48 hits were thrown in this game while the physicality factor was skillfully met with an appropriate amount of offence shown by the 60 shots let lose between puck drop and the final horn. 

Even a play that ended with Johnny Boychuck being carted off the ice via stretcher was as accidental as such a play can be. With the puck back in the corner, both Johnny Boychuck and Max Paccoretty set their sights on evading one another. However, as the three players in this scenario (Boychuck, Paccoretty and the puck) converged, Paccoretty lowered the shoulder to make the clean fore-check. Following Boychuk's collapsing to the ice, Paccoretty was assessed a minor penalty for boarding but as video of the hit circulated the web it became clear that this play, no matter how grizzly it ended was a freak accident that occurred after a fully legal instance of body contact solicited by Max Paccoretty. 

As the play developed, Max simply extended his forearm and made strong contact with Boychuck's ribcage. The video shows that Boychuck was already pivoting to play the puck when he was hit meaning that although the contact was legal, his previous momentum carried him into a position that resulted in his colliding strongly with the boards. Paccoretty had no way of controlling this and was simply making a hit to gain puck possession and so we no longer question the merits of such a hit.  

Hockey is a contact sport played by 200 pound men moving at 20 to 30 MPH all enclosed by unmoving plexi glass boards. In such a deranged form of athletic exertion, injuries are bound to occur and so long as they are accidental there is no reason for accusations of being a dirty player.   

For that reason this thrilling December 5th game between the Bruins and Canadians was a good game and one that the NHL loves to see. Following that final horn there was no criticism about fighting or a lack of goal scoring as this game somehow made 3 goals seem like 10 and each of that endless slew of hits seem perfectly clean.  

On December 5th the NHL wanted to send the Bruins a basket of muffins, 1 night later they were ready to take their beloved Original 6 franchise into the alleyway to be shot.  

For the NHL the debate on fighting was ignited early on this season as on day one, longtime enforcer: Gerogre Parros fell face first onto the ice, giving himself a concussion and like so many others this season causing his trainers to wheel out the stretcher.  

Now it is no secret that Parros was not the first fighter to be injured in the line of duty. In fact, the NHL is haunted by the ongoing ailments plaguing guys who retired years ago and yet Parros' injury was gruesome in a whole new way. When a guy gets flattened by a monster uppercut there are people who cheer much like they do when a boxer wins a fight while when Parros got his face slammed into the ice, there were no cheers. People looked at this mustached veteran as he lay unconscious on the ice and frowned thinking is this what the league has come to? 

As the NFL combats concussions and the NHL tries as hard as it can to make parents more willing to sign their kids up for youth hockey programs the ranks of which are running thin it seems strange that this game that is supposedly "safer than ever" is still one watching its players getting far too familiar with the feeling of the stretcher against their back.  

At first glance, fighting looks barbaric, in human and uncivilized to solve disagreements via violent bouts of fisticuffs and yet it is a part of the game of hockey and no matter how much people hate it the argument is that taking it away would diminish the true-to-its-roots nature that hockey employs so magically. However, as the debate raged on, Bruin Shawn Thornton rapidly rushed to make a point that ironically has been made more than any other of late. 

“I think they want it in the game. I think everybody wants it in the game,” Thornton said on the Dennis and Callahan morning talk show back on December 4th. “But they’re kind of at a stage now with all the [concussion] stuff going on that the league’s been put in a position that they have to cover their own [butts] about it. I think that’s the biggest reason that you feel this sort of push towards I guess it being phased out a little. But I think it’s more about covering their own [butts] than anything else.”

He then went on to say that fighting is less of a problem than the cheap shots as equally prevalent as fights are more of a problem in the NHL. 

“Listen, I go into a fight, I know what I’m doing. It’s very rare that we’re getting hurt in a fight,” Thornton said. “I don’t know the stats — I’ve argued it before and I should probably get the numbers — but the amount of concussions that have come from fighting in the last 10 years as opposed to guys that have been hit? We’re running around there at whatever, 30 miles per hour in a closed atmosphere with no out of bounds. There’s going to be some injuries. There’s nowhere to go except the boards, and those aren’t as forgiving as people think.

“They have to get rid of cheap shots, the hits from behind, the head shots, the elbows to the head, stuff like that. That’s where it’s coming from. If you’re not expecting it, that’s when you get hurt. I think for the majority of us, when we’re fighting, we’re fairly prepared, we know what we’re doing. I know what I’m signing up for.” 

What Thornton eluded to at the end is true. In the 2013 season, the Boston Bruins compiled 32 fights in the 48 games of their lockout shortened season and yet only 9 players contributed to that total. It is a select group of people who have the need or feelings that necessitate dropping the gloves and within that group there are few who do not know what they are doing. 

In fact, safe fights are known to at times defuses the anger that often results in those brutal cheap shots. 

"Does fighting still have a place in today's NHL? My answer is a qualified yes," Iginla wrote in a Sports Illustrated report on fighting in hockey. "I temper my response because I don't know of any player who truly loves fighting. Ideally it would not be a part of the game. But the nature of our sport is such that fighting actually curtails many dirty plays that could result in injuries."

"If [fighting] was taken out of the game, I believe there would be more illegal stickwork, most of it done out of sight of the referees; more slashes to the ankles or wrists, and in between pads; and more cross checks to the tailbone," he wrote. "Incidents of players taking such liberties are rare in today's game because fighting gives us the ability to hold each other accountable. If you play dirty, you're going to have to answer for it."

"Listen, we're the Bruins. We've got guys who can fight. I like the way we've built our team. I think our fans appreciate it too." Bruins GM Peter Charelli added at the end of that Iginla article.   

All 3 opinions expressed by those Bruin personalities were put into play in the very next game following that great Montreal match-up as one of the most brutal periods of hockey in recent history simply embarrassed the Bruins organization as well as the NHL as a whole.  

It began early. 

Meere seconds after the puck was dropped, Loui Erikkson found himself seated at the top of the right face of circle caught in a position that forced him to turn his head and attention away from the tough job of protecting himself and instead had to drop his stick and his shoulder to the ice for the purpose of playing the puck.   

However, despite that, Brooks Orpik who was currently bearing down on Eriksson from a strong position at the blue line knew that the Bruin was still in a position to be hit. At the very second Eriksson played the puck, Orpik slammed him ramming the Bruin to the ice while immediately soliciting quite a response from a Bruins team that has never been known to back away from an opponent’s physical play. 

However at that point it was soon pointed out how Eriksson was in serious trouble. Replay showed that Orpik had targeted the head and in the words of Brenden Shannahan delivered a hit in which the head was the principle point of contact.  

Eriksson had already missed 5 games less than a month earlier as a result of a concussion suffered during a brutal John Scott elbow to the head and by the time this game ended it was clear he would miss a few more as a result of another concussion suffered during that hit. 

1 down. 

Brooks Orpik, was no stranger to Boston Sports. He played 3 seasons at BC as the new millennium arrived and while he was never a man recognized for any sort of scoring talent, he was and still is a huge human being. Orpik compiled 324 penalty minutes during that 3 year span and was drafted prior to his senior season by the Pittsburgh Penguins. From there it took him just 2 years to ascend to the NHL level.

Orpik loved Boston and when he was crushing people at BC, Bostonians loved him. On December 5th however, there was anger and Bruin enforcer, Shawn Thornton wanted blood. 

5 minutes and 20 seconds later, he did his best to get it. With the puck trickling into the corner, Thornton pinned Orpik against the boards and committed as much of a roughing penalty as physically possible. With the referee standing right next to him, Thornton repeatedly slammed Orpik with a cruel assortment of punches and crosschecks. Thornton wanted so badly to fight a far from undersized Orpik and while Orpik did refuse and Thornton did go to the box to serve his roughing penalty, if Orpik had dropped the gloves the bomb would have been defused.

But he did not so with Thornton stewing in the box, the simple grenade of anger rapidly turned into an atom bomb. 

Even after Milan Lucic and Derek Engelland fought with 13 minutes to go in the 1st period, you just got a sense that fight night in Boston was not even close to coming to an end. There were scrums after every frozen puck, profanity being screamed across benches and oh yes there were the hits. Mat Bartowski had one immediately after the Lucic fight as did Chara a few minutes later. 

There was anger on the ice on that Saturday night meaning that for the first 2 periods, the goals scored in this game took a back seat.  

That focus was even further decreased when one of the dirtiest sequences in NHL history rapidly developed. 

Bruin, Brad Marchand held the puck just behind the Bruins blue line just as his team finished a full change. He was tripped however while looking to move the puck to a teammate breaking up ice. Upon jumping to a kneeling position, Penguin: James Neal accelerated out of his own zone and extended his knee therefore making contact with Marchand's head. 

As Marchand lay dazed on the ice, the play was soon blown dead allowing Bruin trainer, Don Delnegro to rush onto the ice. By now however, the Bruins had had it as while Marchand began responding to Delnegro, a massive pileup formed around the Penguins face off dot. The pileup initially involved Bruin Adam McQuaid vs. Orpik and 2 other Penguins but soon escalated to one in which Shawn Thornton could not resist.  

He accelerated in towards the pile and committed a transgression with only 1 word fit to serve as its description: disgusting. He grasped Orpik by the collar of his sweater and yanked the unsuspecting defense man down to the ice. From there, Thornton, who had both knees resting on Orpik's arm showered his with the wrath of his angry fist connecting with 2 punches a possibly a 3rd one before he was dragged off Orpik by a referee as well as what looked to be Chris Letang. 

However what was the scariest aspect of this moment was how quickly not one, not two but three Penguins within the vicinity called for medical assistance as Orpik's muddled face was revealed.  

Orpik was unconscious and remained so for 10 minutes before being carted off the ice via a stretcher that was on the ice before the trainers were. The entire TD Garden knew at once that what had just happened was a terrible tragedy only made worse by the fact that it could have been so easily avoided. There was not a human in hockey who was not asking "what were you doing?" to Shawn Thornton. Even Shawn himself.  

"I take a lot of pride in that. I do." Shawn Thornton once said. "People could probably criticize that I'm a little too honorable, I suppose, in some instances. I've been a firm believer my whole life that what goes around comes around. If you're one of those guys that suckers someone when they're down or you go after somebody that doesn't deserve it or isn't the same category as you, that will come back and bite you at some point, too. I also take a lot of pride in the fact that I can play 8-12 minutes a night. I've had to work extremely hard on that part of my game to bring more to the table than just fighting. That's part of my game, but I can do a lot more." 

Thornton broke his own code by punching Orpik. 

"Obviously, I made a mistake. I'm aware of it. I've been told they're having a hearing and it's hard for me to say much more than that. It was not my intention. I feel awful. I felt sick all game," 

"It's always my job, I guess, to defend my teammates," Thornton said. "But I prided myself for a long time to stay within the lines. It's hard for me to talk about right now. I can't say 'I'm sorry' enough. I'm sure I'll be criticized for saying it, but it's true and I hope he's doing all right. I heard that he's conscious and talking, and I'm happy for that." 

He apparently had a strong relationship with Orpik which only makes this incident even more sickening. 

"I feel awful, It wasn't my intention for that outcome. I know Brooksy. I've gotten to know him over the last seven years here. I skate with him in the summer, through the lockout. I've texted him a couple times. I feel awful. It definitely was not what I wanted to see or anybody wanted to see."

Shawn Thornton is not a dirty player. He loved the game of hockey almost to a fault but he is not perfect and in the end it was that imperfection that may have heavily damaged his reputation as an amiable human being not just a hockey player. 

He knew he could not apologize enough but as he stood there by his locker literally on the brink of tears, he wanted the world to know that he would not sleep again for days.  

With three terrible punches, and by extension the 13 different penalties assessed throughout the game, the Bruins and Penguins now understand that this game, this game that saw Loui Eriksson go down with a concussion, Chris Kelly break his ankle following a slash from Pascal Dupuis and Brooks Orpik get his face caved in will never be forgotten. There were so many aggressors, Thornton, Neal and Orpik who hit Eriksson and there was all off the instigators who fueled the flamed with those net front scrums. All of these once respectable athletes lost their cool at the same time and embarrassed the NHL in a way it hasn't been embarrassed in years. 

As for Bruins coach Claude Jullian, he like so many other hockey fans was obviously fighting the urge to cast aside loyalty to his team and tell the world he agreed with their opinion on the attack. 

"I'm not going to answer that the way you probably want to because I'm not crazy about that but at the same time I understand the other side of it," Julien said. "Do we stick together as a team or not? And that's where the players right now, when they do that, they say, 'Listen, my guy just got nailed and I'm going to stick up for my teammate.'"

"And that's good for a team to know that they have each other's backs. So it's a hard thing to clean out. It's a hard thing because I respect that part of the thinking but also I want to see a hockey game where you're allowed to give good hits and not have to be punished. So I don't know if I have the right answer or the right solution for that."