Dear NuméroHuit,

Are we, Montrealers, perhaps being too irrational and borderline erratic about the Chara-Pacioretty incident?

Sincerly,

GoHabsGo

I can’t help but feel that somehow, somewhere down the line, the analysis surrounding the Chara-Pacioretty incident was unskillfully spun.  By both Montreal and Boston.  The result being a few morons, divided amongst two sinking rowboats, pelting rocks at each other.

I don’t feel the need to over-complicate the issue.

A main point of debate seems to be “intention”.  In the light of this season’s series between Boston and Montreal, I haven’t the faintest doubt that Zdeno Chara’s intentions were to lay a good one on Max Pacioretty.  The fact that “Patches” had been inarguably disrespectful to the veteran in previous games (no, that does not warrant a severe concussion and a broken vertebrae) establishes fairly clearly the strained climate between the two.  However, I don’t feel as convinced about #33’s intentions to injure Max, to end his career, to kill him – as some seem to speculate.

That Chara knew where he was on the ice should be taken for granted. He’s a veteran defensemen with a few NHL seasons under his belt and the truth is, he should know.  He should have also been aware that his check would finish in the turnbuckle.  But note, that this says nothing at all of intention for I don’t believe for a second that Chara possesses the talent and dexterity to purposely guide Pacioretty’s face into a post.

That #33 had properly reasoned the consequences of his actions, I doubt.  That, in and of itself, is far from an exonerating factor.  Though Chara’s hit on MaxPac was not a display of his vindictive, monstrous nature –it was certainly evidence of his outrageous negligence in an irresponsible play.  And I think that that, in and of its own, warrants a suspension. 

The NHL’s disciplinary committee has made a revolting error in judgment by completely ignoring the context of the incident and then omitting to responsibilize players.  But everything I’ve stated thus far should have been givens.

Though just before we Montrealers go ransack our sheds for the pitchforks, let’s indulge in a little objective examination.  Zdeno Chara certainly isn’t the only NHL player to have displayed compulsive carelessness.  Why weren’t Montreal fans this sickened when Joe Thornton mowed down David Perron?  When Matt Cooke laid down the law on Marc Savard?  Perron hasn’t played a game since and Savard (aside his return during the 2010 Playoffs) missed out half of this season before his brief luckless return where he sustained a second concussion.  Both players are without ETAs.

This kind of hypocrisy is the same as the one we so adamantly reproached of the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Sure, Cooke was allowed to nearly kill every player he could get to fast enough but when Crosby got injured … how deplorable the league was not to address this issue of headshots! 

I think the whole of Montreal needs to take a few steps back and breathe.  I think we need to stop buying Chara Sucks t-shirts (because it’s just fueling the idea that we don’t actually understand what the real issue is).  I think we need to start manufacturing “Bettman is a Classless Asshole” t-shirts instead since that’s a pretty irrevocable fact by now.  I think we need to stop dumping beer on goaltenders that have really nothing to do with what happened.  I think we need to stop clogging the 9-1-1 lines to denounce the event before someone who has an actual emergency can’t get the help they need fast enough.

We look irrational and we look stupid.  So let’s restructure our thoughts and perhaps articulate them a little more elegantly with an objectivity that the rest of the world will have no choice but to respect.