[oilyfan]

http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/...ompletely-true

All excuses aside, here is the least fanciful interpretation of events, which no doubt Wideman’s defenders will dispute until blue in the face, if not longer:

Wideman got up from the hit, started skating the 60 or so feet to the Flames bench, tapped his stick on the ice to signal he was coming off for a line change, and had plenty of time, with his head now up, to see the back of Henderson and find a route around him. Zebras are quite well-marked, as you know. It’s hard to mistake them for anything else.

But he was royally ticked off after going head-first into the boards, and would have taken it out on any object, animate or otherwise, that blocked his route to the door.

It was a classic “get the bleep out of my way” cross-check. The larger mystery than why he wouldn’t merely bear-hug the linesman and move him aside is why there was no penalty on the play. If it had been a Predators player he hit like that, he’d have received at least a minor for cross-checking.