As we wait to see how many games Philly's Jesse Boulerice will be forced to miss after cross-checking Canucks forward Ryan Kesler across the jaw last night, we can't help but by reminded of some of hockey's more infamous stick-related incidents. Below are some of the worst of the worst and the punishment the League doled out (or didn't) in response.
Honorable mention: Dino Ciccarelli on Luke Richardson, Brad May on Steve Heinze and Tony Granato on Neil Wilkinson. Dino wasn't suspended for his two-hander, but was convicted of assault and sentenced to a day in prison, while Granato got 15 games for his hack and May got 20 for his. Why honorable mentions? Because I couldn't find individual clips of each incident (but all three can be seen here). Other notable incidents include Eddie Shore on Ace Bailey and Dave Brown on Tomas Sandstrom (both earned 15 game suspensions). Anyway, on to the YouTube-y goodness...
Ron Hextall on Kent Nilsson. Hextall got eight games for this Stanley Cup Finals slash.
Marty McSorley on Donald Brashear. McSorley was suspended for the remainder of the 1999-2000 season (which amounted to 23 games), for this whack whacking.
Chris Simon on Ryan Hollweg. For this thuggery, Simon was suspended for the remainder of the season (playoffs included) or 25 games, whichever was longer. The latter was, and Si makes his return to the NHL on Saturday night... against the Flyers.
Alexander Perezhogin on Garrett Stafford. To the minors for this hack, which earned Perezhogin an unprecedented season-long suspension from the AHL.
Which brings us to last night's Boulerice hit (recall that Boulerice was suspended from the OHL for a year for a stick-swinging incident). The NHL says they're serious about getting rid of stickwork like this and shots to the head of all kinds. I guess we'll wait and see how serious they are when they respond to this: