When I started writing this blog back in may my goal was to show everyone who read this how great the game of hockey can be. I also knew from time to time some incidents that put the game in a negative spotlight would happen
Last night at Xcel was one of those incidents.
Last night the Minnesota Wild defeated the Vancouver Canucks by a score of 6-2. The story of the game should have been how dominate the Wild looked against a Stanley Cup contender after a poor game against Columbus a couple nights earlier.
Instead the game took a backseat due to the actions of Canucks forward Rick Rypien.
In the 1st period Rypien got into a fight with wild forward Brad Staubitz. In the 2nd the Canucks were down 5-1 with a little over six minutes to play in the period when Rypien decided he wanted to go one on one once again with Staubitz.
This time the linesman stepped in before the fight could get started. The next minute would show a huge lapse in judgment on the part of Rypien.
First Rypien would get one more cheap shot in on Staubitz while the referee was breaking them up, then he put his hands on one of the linesman as he was being escorted away.
Putting your hands on an official is bad enough but on the way to the dressing room Rypien went after a Wild fan who was sitting behind the Canucks bench.
That's the one thing you can't do under any circumstances in any sport is go after the fan. Yes, they buy their tickets and they have the right to boo or heckle you as they see fit. If they get out of line that is what security is there for.
A player's job is to go out, play the game & help his team win. Hockey is a very emotional game but you have to be able to control your emotions in situations like this & Rypien failed to do that.
At this point we don't know if or what the fan said to Rypien. From the looks of it all it shows was the fan clapping at Rypien being sent to the locker room. I didn't see one thing the fan did that justifies Rypien going after him.
As of right now Rypien is suspended indefinitely. That's the NHL's way of saying we aren't sure how long we should suspend him, all we know is he can't play until we figure this out. more heinous acts have been committed on the ice but looking back on the sequence of events here is how I think the suspension will play out.
Sucker-punch on Staubitz after the referees breaking it up: 1 game
Putting his hands on an official: 5 games
Going after a fan: 10 games
Looks like a 16 game suspension to me which means he wouldn't come back until December. I'll put the number at 16 & take the over.
Commissioner Gary Bettman can't allow incidents like this to happen in the NHL. My guess is Rypien will be used to make an example. After last night, he could use the time off to think about his actions.
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