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11.06.2009

Boys are back in town...

I've been a pretty bad blogger this week but quite frankly there hasn't really been anything going on in Tbirds land.

Seattle gets back to work tonight for their 2nd straight 3 in 3 weekend. This will be the 3rd "3 in 3" weekend of the season for Seattle. Tbirds have NINE of these such weekends over the course of the season.

The big news around the hockey world this week is the season long suspension for Erie Otters player Michael Liambas has been suspended for the remainder of the season for his hit on 16 year old Kitchener Rangers defender Ben Fanelli. Fanelli was left with a fractured skull among other things but has been upgraded to stable condition and moved out of the ICU and into a private room.

With sincerity I really hope the kid makes a full recovery and is able to resume his career... it was a nasty hit.

My question is... does the punishment fit the crime.

Here is the video...

From what I understand Liambas has a history of getting in a little bit of trouble in the OHL but I'm not really sure he deserved to be suspended for the rest of the season. Looked to me like Liambas stopped striding several feet from the hit, kept his elbow down until after the hit and Fanelli had an unfortunate combination of turning away from the hit and having his helmet knocked off in the collision with the boards that might have led to an increase in the severity of the injury.

I want to be very careful not to be insensitive to Fanelli... it is always scary when a player gets hurt like that, much less a 16 year old kid going up against a 20 year old kid on a hard hit behind the net.

I'm just not entirely convinced that it was even a penalty much less a season long suspension.

What do you guys think??

9 comments :

Anonymous said...

Clean Hit, I'm sure the people already out to destroy hockey are going to have something too say about it. It happens, it's unfortunate. It's too bad it just gives powers of the CHL to converge and find a way to ban all contact in hockey....Perhaps make everyone wear foam padding, give them nerf sticks and pucks.

Anonymous said...

Clean hit

Anonymous said...

anybody know if the sick players will be back tonight?

Anonymous said...

From what I hear the flu bug has passed.

Anonymous said...

That is a LONG FLU bug. Clean hit by the way. A HARD hit but CLEAN hit,

Brian in Sherwood

seattlelovebirds said...

clean in that he did not break rules, but not clean in that it sure looks like he is trying to hit someone and take them out.

i agree the kid who got hit turned away and may have had his helmet on too loose, but still, liambas sure looked like he was out for blood.

even still, i don't know that the whole season is an appropriate suspension.

Mike said...

I'm more worried about the young kid than Liambas' season at this point.

stbird said...

Seems like a clean hit. I am sure we will have new stupid rules over this next year. But I guess unless you have a chain link fence inside an octagon you can't fight or hit or choke someone or kick them in the face. Ultimate fighting is surely less violent then hockey.

stbird said...

A press release issued Saturday by the OHL's Kitchener Rangers says that Fanelli is out of the hospital.

I am sure he will have a hard and long recovery, but at least he is out of the hospital.

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