Quote:
Originally Posted by Oil Stain
They are neutral on the two teams involved. If any non-Flames fan dislikes Tkachuk it is because of his actions, not who he plays for.
The whole point of my post was that I found it bizarre that a Flames fan can't understand why much of the hockey world isn't coming down on Kassian for this incident.
It's because they also don't like how Tkachuk and how he plays the game.
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I'd wager half the neutral fans weighing in on the incident haven't watched a full Flames game with Tkachuk playing. Most fans are woefully ignorant of the rest of the league beyond their own team. They probably heard a comment about Tkachuk being a new Marchand and they just assume he goes around slashing people and spitting on them.
Most of these neutral fans probably don't know Tkachuk has fought 7 times in 4 seasons; some teams don't have a single player who has fought that much in the last 4 seasons. They almost certainly don't know he dropped the gloves against two Kings players in the games following the Doughty incident. Heck, some of them probably don't even know Tkachuk is a talented star player who leads his team in scoring.
And I thought the code prescribed that if a tough guy dummies a skilled player on the other team, he has to answer the bell against a tough guy teammate of the guy he dummied. Funny that we're not hearing that element of the code brought up by Kassian partisans.
Tkachuk is an 'agitator' mainly because he beaks off at guys to get them off their games. He's not a vicious cheap-shot artist like a Perry or Pronger - two star players who routinely set out to hurt opponents and rarely dropped the gloves.
Tkachuk didn't lay those hits on Kassian because he indiscriminately goes around cheap-shotting guys. He laid those hits because he knows Kassian has a short fuse and would probably do something dumb in retaliation. And he did. Mission accomplished.