More Horrific Footage

I'll be honest here: I don't go looking for this stuff. People email me all sorts of stuff, and this one ranks right up there with the recent footage we've seen from Manitoba and Texas in terms of the downright sickening clips of hockey I've brought to light. This one seems to come out of nowhere, though, so I'm not sure what happened in this video to cause the chaos. Needless to say, the referee probably called more than just high-sticking in this one. No names of teams are given and neither player is named in this incident, but I had to stop and replay this one a number of times just so I could believe what I saw.

With the increase of popularity in camera phones, everything is a click away from being on the internet. People like Lindsay Lohan can attest, but it also brings us into the world of sports a lot faster, especially those sports at the amateur level. Here is the video of the latest footage. It comes to us from a Senior Men's League in the province of Quebec. Try to catch what happens on the first time without replaying it. I'm guessing you'll see it, but you'll also rewind the video just confirm what you saw.

Thanks to Marc for sending me that video... I think.

Much like the book review on Lone Skate Skate followed by the Texas high school hockey brawl, I posted an article on protecting yourself from brain injuries yesterday, and we get this today. Am I jinxing hockey in general?

There isn't much to be said after seeing that video. The footage was reportedly taken on March 28, but there's nothing yet that I can find on the two men involved. I don't know if charges have been laid, if suspensions have been handed out, or what happened after the game in the hallway to the dressing rooms.

I do know two things: if you're a little guy who likes to run his mouth, don't skate away from the big guy you were having an animated chat with, and DO NOT CHOP WOOD ON HIS HEAD! How the player in red escaped any sort of concussion is beyond me after seeing someone two-hand a stick across the top of his melon. This is the epitome of dangerous play, and someone needs to remove the player who delivered the tomahawk chop from the game.

Oh, and by the way, Texas? You're not off the hook today. We're not done with you yet.

We got back to the rec leagues - this time, a youth rec league - in Dallas, Texas where we see a pretty routine play turn into a life-and-death situation in a moment. Reportedly, the white team was leading 6-0 when this happened.

Thanks to Jeff for sending me the heads-up on this clip.

The kid in the dark jersey got a 10-minute misconduct. The kid in the white jersey reportedly spent the night at the hospital with no update on his condition after they carted him off the ice on a stretcher. Anyone think that's a fair deal?

All the player in the dark jersey has to do is let up. Pin the man against the boards and trap the puck in his skates. That's all. Nothing more is necessary, and you remove him from a scoring chance as well as making it difficult to pass it to a teammate. That alone should score you points with the coach and your teammates.

Instead, players have this mentality that the big hit is far more effective than the safe play. There's no doubt that the big hit can fire a team up, but these players neither have the maturity nor the capacity to know when and how to throw these kinds of hits. It's clear from the video above, and I pray that the player in the white jersey comes out of this just as well as he was before the hit.

Readers, I'm begging you to go back and read the article from yesterday. Incidents like these cannot keep happening. Luckily, players have dodged some major bullets when it comes to their health in each of these situations, but it won't be long before the odds catch up to someone.

And when that happens, everyone loses.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!