Max Pacioretty - Injured by Chara

[ZackG]

Hi everyone,

Not sure how many of you are hockey fans here. I myself am a Montreal Canadiens fan, but I am trying to look at the hit sustained by Max Pacioretty impartially...

At full speed, the hit looks unintentional by Chara and unfortunate for everyone. However, once looking at the replay in slow motion, you can see many clues as to what Chara was thinking and what exactly he did.

Firstly, Pacioretty was on his way past Chara using his speed combined with his body position. You can see that Chara has that "Oh, Crap" look. He knew that Patches was blowing by. He also takes a very poor angle at trying to stop Max Pac. So poor, that he starts using his arm "rub" him into the boards. Up to this point, in my opinion, what we see is a normal occurence and doesn't merit anything other than a 2-minute penalty to the offender for interfering with the skater.

However, the next few moments become scary. Chara looks up. He clearly sees where he is (next to the benches and the partition). Instead of giving up on trying to stop Pacioretty (there were 15 second left in the period, also losing 4-0), Chara continues his efforts to push Pacioretty into the boards. He then gives Pacioretty a "little" push from behind, preventing Pacioretty from being able to stop. Also, a "little" push from someone who is over 6ft9, 250lbs and going over 30km/hr, has monumental force to it. Once the push has been executed, Chara then gets his left elbow up, forcing Max Pacioretty's head into the only place it can go, the partition.

Once Pacioretty gets hit, Chara skates on. He doesn't look back. Not even once. He may have killed the guy, and didn't look back. To me, this screams malice. Obviously, Pacioretty and Chara have history as well, but I will not get into that here.

The result: Pacioretty sustained a concussion and a fractured verterbrae. It will take years until he becomes fully functional.

In my opinion, this merits a heavy suspension from the NHL. Somewhere between 10 games to the rest of the season would send a message to the players. You must be aware of where you are and what you are doing. Regardless of whether Chara meant to do it or not, it happened. Severe consequences were suffered by Pacioretty. Chara must suffer some kind of consequence as well, even though it will never be quite like what Max Pacioretty will have to endure.


What do you guys think? I would be interested to know what some of you on this forum think on a sports issue.



Thats my two cents for the day.




Zack