Lukas Rousek knocked unconscious by a massive check, was it clean or dirty?
Last night in AHL action the Rochester Americans visited the Syracuse Crunch for an important North Division match up. The Crunch have had a slow start to the season starting the year 2-5-1-2 heading into last night's action. The team is clearly frustrated and those frustrations boiled over for 26-year-old Darren Raddysh.
Late in the 3rd period with the Americans up 2-1, Lukas Rousek chased a puck deep into the Crunch zone. Rousek picks the puck up with his head down and tries to spin around the net to score an empty net goal. Unfortunately for Rousek, Raddysh had other ideas.
On the play Raddysh puts his head down and charges back towards his own goal, to try and make a play. But rather than skating all the way back to his goal line, Raddysh begins to glide around the hash marks. As Rousek turns around the goal Raddysh delivers a massive hit.
The hit sends Rousek crashing hard to the ice. Upon impact Rousek was knocked unconscious. Rousek's teammates came right to his defense in a scrum. After the play Raddysh was awarded a 2-minute minor for charging. Many felt this was deserving of a much worse penalty. Raddysh has every right to deliver a legal body check and he doesn't skate directly into the hit. But on the play Raddysh does cover a long distance, which by definition of the rule does constitute charging.
What do you think?
| POLL | ||
Was this hit clean or dirty? | ||
| Clean | 55 | 41 % |
| Dirty | 79 | 59 % |
| List of polls | ||
