Re: Suspend Kyle Rau for as long as Jason Zucker is unable to play!
I hope Zucker is OK and can get back on the ice this week, if not for the game today for practice later.
My initial thought was concussion. Hopefully it is just a minor shoulder injury.
Rau deserved 5 and a game for that. It was late. It was against the wall. He had plenty of time to decide not to lay the hit.
Bottom line, it was a reckless and dangerous hit that resulted in injury. These are the kinds of hits that need to be eliminated from the game.
Anyone saying there needs to be some sort of accountability by Zucker to avoid putting himself in that position....that's crazy. There was no reason he should have expected to get hit that late after releasing the puck. Rau was in complete control of his body and made a decision to hit Zucker well late. Attempts to shift any of the responsibility away from Rau are, in my opinion as a Gopher fan, disgusting.
I would fully support an additional game suspension for Rau, with the caveat being that the WCHA starts being more consistent with handing out suspensions for this type of situation. I think other leagues (the CCHA in particular) have been much better at consistently handing out additional suspensions for reckless and dangerous hits. We haven't seen that from the WCHA. So, I don't like the idea of giving a suspension simply because of who the victim is. If this is the turning point and the WCHA gets serious about addressing these kinds of hits regardless of who is on the receiving end, then hand down a suspension.
Oh yeah, whoever alluded to the high stick as being "headhunting" lost as much credibility as those who said the Rau hit only deserved 2 minutes.
I hope Zucker is OK and can get back on the ice this week, if not for the game today for practice later.
My initial thought was concussion. Hopefully it is just a minor shoulder injury.
Rau deserved 5 and a game for that. It was late. It was against the wall. He had plenty of time to decide not to lay the hit.
Bottom line, it was a reckless and dangerous hit that resulted in injury. These are the kinds of hits that need to be eliminated from the game.
Anyone saying there needs to be some sort of accountability by Zucker to avoid putting himself in that position....that's crazy. There was no reason he should have expected to get hit that late after releasing the puck. Rau was in complete control of his body and made a decision to hit Zucker well late. Attempts to shift any of the responsibility away from Rau are, in my opinion as a Gopher fan, disgusting.
I would fully support an additional game suspension for Rau, with the caveat being that the WCHA starts being more consistent with handing out suspensions for this type of situation. I think other leagues (the CCHA in particular) have been much better at consistently handing out additional suspensions for reckless and dangerous hits. We haven't seen that from the WCHA. So, I don't like the idea of giving a suspension simply because of who the victim is. If this is the turning point and the WCHA gets serious about addressing these kinds of hits regardless of who is on the receiving end, then hand down a suspension.
Oh yeah, whoever alluded to the high stick as being "headhunting" lost as much credibility as those who said the Rau hit only deserved 2 minutes.
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