The National Hockey League, namely disciplinarian Colin Campbell, has suspended Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin two games for his hit on Brian Campbell (no relation), according to Tarik El-Bashir of the Washington Post. Ovechkin will miss a game against Florida on on Tuesday evening and one against Carolina on Thursday evening.
He'll lose $234,645.60 of salary. Yikes.
As Yahoo! Sports' Sean Leahy pointed out on Sunday, the suspension was not an automatic one due to the circumstances. League rules call for a player to be automatically suspended two games when they've been given two game misconducts for boarding in one season. Ovechkin's game misconduct for the Campbell hit was his second of the year, the other coming in November for a hit placed on Buffalo's Patrick Kaleta.
Due to a loophole, however, those two suspensions have to be no more than 41 games apart from each other. The game on Sunday was the 42nd game since the Kaleta hit. How timely.
The Campbell hit is at least the third example of reckless play by Ovechkin this year, though, following the Kaleta incident and a knee-on-knee hit on Tim Gleason that also got him suspended. Apparently, the league now believes Ovechkin is a repeat offender, and under Rule 42 for Boarding or Rule 44 for Checking From Behind, they are allowed to suspend a player using their judgment. That's exactly what happened today.
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NHL Suspends Alex Ovechkin Two Games
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Embarassing for the NHL
Colin Campbell should have recused himself from the Ovechkin decision. It is embarrassing that he is allowed to rule on a player who is playing his son’s team during the suspension.
by Aaron Lerner on Mar 15, 2010 5:09 PM EDT reply actions
Wrong Campbell
Colin Campbell and Brian Campbell are not related.
Colin Campbell’s son (Greg) plays for the Florida Panthers.
by ahnfire on Mar 15, 2010 11:01 PM EDT up reply actions
Nevermind
I just realized what you meant to imply, with the fact that the Caps are playing the Panthers next.
by ahnfire on Mar 15, 2010 11:19 PM EDT up reply actions
I’m not sure Campbell’s son really factored into this. Had OV done this two games prior, he would have faced an AUTOMATIC suspension for 2 game misconducts for boarding within 42 games (last one was I think 43 games ago on Kaleta?). He leads the league in misconducts this year, and I had heard some people yelling for 5 games.
This punishment is exactly what I expected for the hit.
Also, the Caps are 6-2 without OV this year. They
should be okaywill be just fine against the 12th and 14th ranked teams in the conference.by The Burl 8 on Mar 16, 2010 8:42 AM EDT up reply actions
Wow, OV gets suspended and Cooke doesn’t? Once again, the NHL proves to be consistently incompetent despite the fact that is their only area of consistency.
The weird thing about that justification: it perfectly applies to Matt Cooke and his head shot on Savard. I guess thats kinda funny.I feel like the flaws and holes in the way the NHL Front Office justifies their reasoning for these kind of decisions is truly beyond any logical person. Really and truly astounding!
by Mitchell Green on Mar 15, 2010 5:11 PM EDT reply actions
Ovetchkin knew what he was doing and he knew that they could likely face Chicago in the finals.
Russian thug.
Why some Hawk didnt pound him senseless, ill never know
by Northof48 on Mar 16, 2010 2:38 AM EDT up reply actions
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