For many Bruins fans the feelings we felt on December 7th in Pittsburgh were similar to those Harry Potter fans would feel if Ron Wesley suddenly killed Harry.
We did not want to believe that what Shawn Thornton did that day actually happened and yet as time has dragged on many Bruins fans, as well as Thornton himself has come to terms with it and realized the true victim in this all. Brooks Orpik was blindsided, attacked and frankly his assailant has felt the full wrath not of Brooks Orpik but Brenden Shannahan and his suit clad counterparts. 5 days shy of a month later, that assailant, that Bruin, Shawn Thornton knows that and in a candid interview this morning on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan radio show, he told us all that he is done fighting his punishment. He is contempt an understands fully what he did while also begging his fans to remember the 600+ games of fair play and team dedication that were played before his most recent one.
“I messed up. I know that,” Thornton said. “I talked about it the other day: I’m not going to let it define me. It’s a mistake I made after 600 games playing right on the line. To be completely honest, doing my job is not an easy one, as far as riding the line. It’s tough to talk about because I know I messed up, but I plan on playing a couple more years and playing within the rules. The outcome wasn’t what was expected, either. A very unfortunate set of circumstances, why I messed up, it can happen. Yeah, the money sucks, the games really suck. But I’m going to put it behind me now and move on.”
Prior to the Orpik incident, Thornton had fed his mighty fists to 71 different NHL players in 119 different fights and yet through all that punching, Thornton had lived his life by the code of hockey, never hitting a guy when he was down and never complaining about any sort of physical play that transpired during a game. Prior to the Orpik incident, Shawn had never even been warned by the Department of Player Safety about any part of his game. As we look back, the cynical in all of us can’t help but wonder. Was 15 games too much for a first time offender, no matter what he did? The stats sure dictate that fact pretty cleanly.
The Thornton suspension was the second longest ever handed out by Brenden Shannahan a head disciplinarian who has shown a strong focus on a players history when determining the length and necessity of a suspension while the first was dished out to a man in Raffi Torris who has been widely labeled as the dirtiest NHL player in years.
Thornton while finally knuckling under the grind of the money and games lost to this suspension has still made it clear that he does not agree with the length of the suspension.
"I’m still not happy with the amount of games I got, but I respect the decision and, like I said, I’d rather just move on mentally and just focus on getting ready for the 11th, instead of focusing on getting ready for another hearing."
But as said before he has given into that number of games and at this point is doing what he believes is best for his team. He did bring the suspension to Gary Bettmen for the appeal but after the NHL's commissioner denied any reduction in number of games Thornton decided to forgo the opportunity to seek further help via an independent arbitrator.
"I decided not to take it to the independent arbitrator," Thornton said on the 31st, speaking with reporters for the first time since December 7, as the process had still been ongoing. "It’s been a long process and to be quite honest…I’d rather not be a distraction around here and I’d rather just focus on getting ready for January 11 – it’s twelve days out now. So it wasn’t - I’m not going to lie to you - it wasn’t an easy decision, I had been thinking about it for probably the last 36 hours, not much sleep. But I feel, for the team, it’s probably the right thing to do at this point, not going through the whole process again for the third time."
Thornton has continued to express his lament of what he did especially through his friendship with Orpik while also attributing his coping with the guilt to Boston's long road trip to Canada which he stayed at home for.
"Probably being here for the first week by myself [while the team was in Canada], maybe helped out a little bit for the team. From top to bottom, I think we’ve done a good job of not letting it fester and this is just another step in that direction, I guess." He said about the Canada trip before turning towards his friendship with Orpik that has seemed to give both players a lot of support amidst this all.
"We’ve known each other a long time, I said that right after the fact that we’re friends and obviously the outcome was not what was intended and I felt awful about it and that hasn’t changed," said Thornton. "We’ve talked, we talked that night and we were still friends after the fact that night and that helped me through this a little bit for sure. There were a lot of guys, not just this locker room - especially in this locker room, my teammates have always supported me - but there were a lot of guys throughout the league that reached out to me that I didn’t know had my number or they figured out a way – I’ve never met them before – with a lot of kind texts and a lot of phone calls that were very very appreciated. Almost all of them were unnecessary; it speaks to the character of the guys that reached out and the guys who spoke out in the media supporting me a little bit, too. They didn’t have to do that and it helped me through the first little bit."
If you are thinking Thornton is sounding like a victim with his words than you are correct but not completely. Thornton is not so sad and broken down by the suspension but more so the pure guilt that coincides with his breaking of the code. He feels genuine sadness at what he did and as he admitted immediately after the incident felt physically sick after being ejected from the Penguins game. That fact more than any other reminds the world that unlike Raffi Torres or Matt Cooke, Shawn Thornton is not a thug and that that is the very reason Bruins fans felt such heartbreak on December 7th.
We will forgive Shawn Thornton and at this point that is all he wants.
"I’m not going to let this define me," he said, when asked by a reporter if he felt he had to rebuild his reputation around the league. "I obviously made a mistake. One mistake. I think doing the job that I’ve done for 600-something games, including playoffs - it’s a tough question to answer because I know I made a mistake but like I said, this won’t define me - I’m going to move on and continue to play and put this in the past. There are a bunch of circumstances that led up to that mistake I made and I don’t think you could duplicate that in any other situation. So, no, it won’t affect the way I do my job," he added, when asked if this would alter the way he approaches his game. My job is still to protect my teammates, my job is still to play productive minutes when I’m out there, play hard, play the game within the lines, and that’s what I’ll try and continue to do, even though I stepped outside of it once."
And already Bruins fans have obliged with Thornton's wish to not let the attack define him as a player they will still cheer when he drops the gloves and in situations of a little less malicious nature than this, they will stand by him because he is Shawn Thornton, because he is a Bruin and above all because he will still live by the code.
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