I find the whole discussion kind of amazing. To me, Tkachuk’s hits were the epitome of “borderline”. They were the type of hits where most of the fans of the delivering team will see them as clean and the other team will see them as dirty. As a Flames fan, I lean towards clean, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if Tkachuk had been called for charging during the game. And I wouldn’t have been particularly upset about that call - at game speed I can definitely see how a ref would see a charge.
However, the fallout is unbelievable. These descriptions of “disgusting, predatory, vile” hits just don’t fit in my view. They were hard hits at the edge of what’s within the rules. An in-game penalty may have been appropriate, but these calls for lengthy suspensions for those hits? You might as well just ban hitting from the game altogether if that’s your viewpoint.
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