Saturday, January 16, 2010

Oscar Moller, Meet Bobby Ryan

Aside from watching the Ducks get run over by the Kings, the Jr. Ducks not be able to score during two intermissions, and dealing with a number of Kings fan throwing lame smack talk at me*, I witnessed Bobby Ryan completely destroy/level/annihilate/end Oscar Moller with a completely clean hit as the game drew to a close.

*Regarding the smack talk, "Ducks suck" is countered by me with "Sorry, I can't hear you, there seems to be a Stanley Cup in my ear", which is followed by "oh, that was so long ago". If we really want to talk about something that happened a long time ago, which is longer: the Ducks last Stanley Cup finals appearance (3 years ago), or the Kings last Stanley Cup finals appearance (17 years ago) during which time the Ducks have played in the finals twice and won a Cup?*

Now to the hit that almost ended Oscar Moller.



At worst, it's a 2-minute minor for charging (Ryan received a 5-minute major for charging and a game misconduct), but let's go over the ways in which the hit is clean:
  • Moller has the puck
  • Bobby leads with his shoulder
  • Bobby keeps his elbows in
  • Bobby makes contact with Moller's shoulder
  • Bobby hits Moller from the front
  • Bobby does not make contact with Moller's head
Moller should keep his head up. For those of you claiming that the game is almost over, so there's no point in making hits, why is Moller stick-handling then? If you don't want to get hit as a game ends, don't try to make plays.

A "dirty" hit was Drew Doughty cross-checking Bobby Ryan in the back (and thus from behind) head-first into the boards earlier in the game. And that hit received no penalty. Even the King's fan sitting in front of me acknowledged it was a cross-check. And I wouldn't even use the term dirty, though it was certainly the dirtier of the two.

Thoughts from Kings fans? Or Ducks fans? Or hockey/sports fans in general?

4 comments:

  1. Firstly, that was correctly called boarding. The major may have been assessed to calm things down more than anything but it was at the tail end of a game so its hard to say. That's no unprecedented either. When refs want to take control they do so.

    Secondly, there's no reason to get testy about "Ducks suck" chants. You had NO part of the Cup win outside of being a fan and I personally dealt with my fair share of ribbing because of said win. Now the Kings are playing better its time to take it a bit less bitterly. Don't quote Patty Roy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I meant charging, not boarding. And charging has nothing to do with elbows or the guy having the puck, its the distance traveled to make contact. That said, it could have been called boarding as easily as charging.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, you conveniently left out step 1a, whereby Ryan takes multiple strides before making the hit. Don't get me wrong, it was a monster hit and I applaud Ryan for using the shoulder, but it was clearly a charge. Anyway, good luck to your team the rest of the way...but could you do something about Corey Perry being such a biotch and tell him to actually scrap with someone his own size?

    ReplyDelete
  4. JZarris- Perry often annoys me as well, I'll see what I can do.

    ReplyDelete