NHL Department Of Player Safety Finally Gets One Right, Fines Chris Pronger $5 For His Hit On Bieber
Associated Press – Justin Bieber’s biggest smash hit may have been the one Chris Pronger gave him during All-Star weekend.
Is it too late for Pronger to say sorry? Well, Pronger, one of the NHL’s greatest defenceman, certainly won’t apologize for the smack down he delivered on Beiber that became a social media sensation because of a photo by the AP’s Mark J. Terrill.
Pronger, who works for the NHL’s Department of Player Safety, joked that he fined himself $5 during a one-man hearing.
Sometimes it seriously feels as if the NHL DoPS uses a Wheel of Fortune to determine what punishment they hand out for various hits around the league. Like Radko Gudas could get a 5-game suspension for accidentally untying somebody’s skate, and then Brad Marchand just gets a $10,000 fine for his 20th slew foot. Inconsistency is the name of the game when it comes to the Department of Player Safety and their hearings. But they finally got one right and I’m glad they decided to take some action against Chris Pronger here. The man was a captain for the Philadelphia Flyers. He brought them to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. Obviously Pronger is going to have a special place in my heart. But there’s no denying that this was a predatory hit with that could have ended much much worse. Frankly, I think a $5 fine is pretty light as far as punishment goes for a repeat offender, but at least they didn’t just let this one slide. We should all be thankful that Bieber didn’t suffer any career ending injuries here. I guess in the end, it was being a full cage cuck that saved his life.
On a related note… I said this before and I’ll say it again. When I’m rich and living in a mansion one day, I want to print that photo of Pronger’s face out, make about a bazillion copies, frame the, and hang them all up on every wall in my mansion. Each wall will have that picture hanging from it. That’s how good it is.