Which of these controversial hits was the worst?

Question

Chris Neil on Chris Drury
Chris Simon on Ryan Hollweg
Cam Janssen on Tomas Kaberle
Todd Bertuzzi on Steve Moore
Marty McSorely on Donald Brashear

Answer 1

Chris Simon. Even though Bertuzzi and McSorely ended up getting in hot water legally, Simon's use of the stick was more obviously intended to cause injury. All the other incidents could be characterized as "He meant to hurt him, but not THAT bad" situations, but Simon was looking to do serious injury with that swing.

Answer 2

Here is how I see these hits:

Neil on Drury.....Neil smoked Drury fair and square, and legal. If you don't like players hitting each other, check out women's hockey.....

Simon on Hollweg....pest boards goon, refs do nothing, goon smokes pest. Goon gets too much and pest is considered the innocent victim instead of the cause.

Janssen on Kaberle....Kaberle....stop watching your pass and stay focused on your surroundings....1.3 secs is not a late hit. This only gets attention because it happened to a Maple Leaf!!

Bertuzzi and Moore....premeditated carry over from a previous game where Moore hit the Canucks star player. Bertuzzi knew exactly what he was doing, it was not part of the play in any shape or form, and there was a severe size advantage for the goon Bertuzzi!!

McSorley on Brashear....vicious goon on goon, with a stick slap to Brashear.....which wouldn't have been as dangerous if Brashear actually did up his helmet correctly.

So my rankings: Bertuzzi by far the worse, Simon and McSorley tied for second a long ways back, and then Neil and Janssen even further back in a tie for third.

Answer 3

In order:
I would say Simon. He used his stick to the face for Gods sake!

Bertuzzi did more damage to Moore but I think there was less intent. It looks to me like Moore got knocked out and it was the ice that did the damage to him. That said, I do not want him on my Red Wings. If his back keeps him out through the playoffs I will be much happier.

McSorley used his stick but he really just gave Brashear a clip to the helmet, it was the way Brashear fell backward and hit his head on the ice.

The Janssen hit was way too late. Look at Kaberle skate, he releases the puck from the hash marks and skates all the way across the faceoff circle before he gets hit. Janssen has no use as a player.

Neil on Drury was headhunting and intentional but not nearly as late as the others. Neil did leave his skates, so no Neil apologists, it was not clean.

Answer 4

Dudes are right - hits and stick fouls are 2 separate issues - at least hits are more an attempt to play within the rules - Bertuzzi mugged Moore - what made it worst was he landed on him driving his face into the ice and then an AV piled on and Moore's head hit the ice age.

Janssen's hit on Kaberle was outside the rules - Neil's was border line.

MCsorley and Simon are goons first and hockey players second. They both should get the same punishment. Sorry career over. Bert too for that matter. People are no paying attention to the league if we have a number of these things to talk about so let's make sure it NEVER gets to this point again and tell Mr Simon he needs to find a new job.

For stick fouls nothing is as bad as Wayne Maki's total destruction of Teddy Green's skull - Eddie Shack had a nasty stick swinging incident at MLG in a weird game involving the Pens and the Flyers (Spectrum roof was damaged and game was moved to MLG). I forget who was on the other end but it was fencing with hockey sticks.

Answer 5

Toss up between Chris Simon on Ryan Hollweg and Todd Bertuzzi on Steve Moore. Chris Simon I see because.. you don't just put both hands on your stick and swing full force at someone's neck/face region. He deserves a lot longer suspension to make sure he doesn't flip out like that again. That was CLEARLY a cheap shot. The Bertuzzi one wasn't a hit, it was a cheap shot. You don't grab someone by the neck and push it full force into the ground, and he clearly knew it could happen. Steve Moore is still going through rehab, and still has symptoms of that horrible accident. Bertuzzi should of gotten a lot longer suspension.. he MAY have ended Moore's career, but hopefully he comes back, and where ever he goes to, he will be honored greatfully, and if he does, he deserves a trophy named after him, and we could make it "Comeback Player of the Year", which could work.

Answer 6

I don't know if you can really compare dirty hits with ugly stick infractions.

On one hand, the Janssen hit on Kaberle was absolutely brutal. Kaberle is a skill guy and the hit might as well have been thrown in the hallway, it was so late.

On the other hand, Simon attempted to hit a triple with Hollweg's head, right? At the end of the day, Hollweg (along with Brashear and Moore) did also live by the sword, unlike Kaberle.

Based on that 'logic', I give Janssen's handiwork the nod for most outrageous display of nonsensical aggression.

Answer 7

Amazing question.... first of all Chris Neils hit on Drury was a legal hit! Maybe it wasn't the cleanest but it was Legal.
Chris Simon retaliated for a cheap hit, did any of you notice the check from behind driving his head face first into the glass? Yes his response was wrong, but it's not like he swung for a triple.
Marty McSorley's slash on Brashear was premeditated.
By far the worst was Bertuzzi's sucker punch to Moore! The sucker punch as bad enough but to ride him face first to the ice with his arm on the back of Moore's neck was and I still the worst of these incidents.

Answer 8

The Chris Neil hit may have been brutal but it was legal. It was no worse than the Stevens Hit on Lindros in Game 7 of the Eastern Finals. In both cases, the hit recipient had his head down!

Both the McSorely and Simon hits used the stick. The stick under no circumstances be used as weapon.

Answer 9

Tod Bertuzzi on Steve Moore. At least the rest of those players on the list who got hit have played or will play again

Answer 10

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh my where do I start.....The McSorley hit was made out to be this horrible act of violence that should have resulted in criminal charges but if Brashear had his helmet on properly and knew how to skate he may not have fallen the way he did and smacked his head on the ice! Bertuzzi..... oh my god "hey Moore nice turtle impression maybe if you werent such a ***** your teamates would not have piled on you giving you that horrible injury" regardless of what you crybabies think it was the pile on not the punch that caused this injury. as for the rest who cares I just posted a question on here, 1987 Dave Brown crosscheck on Tomas Sandstrom is the worst!