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It's funny how early this season the whole hockey world had its "awakening" to hockey culture and bullying, yet it's all forgotten in an instant with this whole soap opera.

Hockey culture at its worst is not in the form of the coach - player relationship, it's at the player to player level. The things that happen on the ice between teams, and even off the ice in the dressing room between players on the same team.

What you are seeing from the Oilers organization, Oilers media, from Kassian, from Kassian's friends (Kesler and Bieksa) is straight up hockey culture bullying.

What Tkachuk did was the equivalent of the nerd in school who actively excels and answers the teachers questions correctly in class at the expense and embarassment of the bully Kassian and in his anger, Kassian tries to start a fight with Tkachuk and rag dolls him when he won't fight him. Then afterwards, Kassian tells all his friends to "get the word out" that Tkachuk is a ##### and won't fight him.

Only in the hockey world, is this kind of bullying acceptable and OPENLY ENDORSED by everyone.

It's all pretty sickening and hypocritical in light of all the discussion earlier in the year that a situation like this can be front page and headlining, just months after everyone in the hockey world supposedly had a reckoning.

Guys like Kassian, Bieksa and Kesler are straight up bullys. You can see it in how they act on the ice. They go around looking for fights and fighting people that they know they can beat. Who can forget Bieksa refusing to fight Westgarth and running to take on the easier Smid, and leaving the call up to fight Westgarth.

Real tough guys don't go out looking for fights. Real tough guys fight when they have to, when they are disrespected or when their friends are disrespected. Real tough guys are like Iginla who fought when he had to. He didn't go around trying to prove that he was the toughest guy. When he fought, it was for a good reason, for the team. Iginla also fought everyone.
He fought guys like Engelland and Souray and Clowe, guys who Bieksa would never go near. Real tough guys are guys like Ferland who despite being one of the toughest guys in the league, didn't fight unless it was in defense of himself or a teammate. In fact, Flames fans would get upset because Ferland wouldn't be more assertive.

These 3 clowns do it just for wanting to look tough. It's classic bully mentality.

If Tkachuk gets seriously injured because of this clown, it's gonna be on the hockey world, not on Tkachuk. The whole animosity wasn't even born out of Tkachuk, the first instance really came from Draisatl slew footing Tkachuk, which led to Tkachuk going after Draisatl in a scrum. Next thing you know, Kassian is going after Tkachuk and just attacking him off a faceoff. Then a year later, Tkachuk catches Kassian with a couple of hits that are within the rules of the game, and Kassian attacks him again.

It's really mind blowing how blind the hockey world is to what's going on. Only in hockey, can a guy get assaulted twice, and yet be the one to be blamed.