Can We Stop With The False Equivalence?

From Bruins fans to idiotic media personalities looking for attention, there's a lot of criticism of Max Pacioretty as well as Habs fans this morning.

It should be expected that any time anything remotely controversial happens, Damien Cox has climbed atop his pedestal to troll fans and then complain about the responses. Here's a rule you should live by on twitter, if you say something stupid, expect stupid responses. Cox is a serial abuser of the format, constantly inflaming and challenging fans to fight, then blocking them at the slightest hint of disagreement.

Because of course, Damien, the hits were SO similar. This kind of simplistic, stupid analysis is exactly what's wrong with media today. Cox displays he has absolutely no understanding of this situation or the one surrounding the Zdeno Chara hit of last year. And after getting shredded by a great many people smarter than himself, Cox fell back on the usual crap of the intellectually inefficient, "it was a joke, LOL". Sure, Cox. That's why you're still beating the drum right now.

Along with Cox you have the normally intelligent and reasonable Jimmy Murphy from ESPN:

Hypocrite? Do we really need to tread over the Chara hit again? Do we really need to beat that corpse for media types with an agenda to show how wrong they are? Here are the obvious and simplistic differences between the two hits than any dunce with half a brain should recognize immediately:

• Pacioretty was making a play to separate Pittsburgh Penguin Kris Letang from the puck.
• Making a hit during that play was not illegal.
• Pacioretty immediately looked back after the hit and looked disengaged from the play.
• Pacioretty struck Letang in the head and will most likely be suspended in spite of having a clean record.
• Pacioretty and Letang have no prior history.
• There were no attempts by Pacioretty to injure Letang at any previous point in the game.
• After Letang scored the winning "goal", Pacioretty immediately approached him to apologize, something which Letang pointed out after the game.

Conversely:

• Chara did not make a play to separate a player from the puck.
• Making a hit during that play was illegal and Chara received an interference penalty for it. By definition, that makes his hit NOT a hockey play.
• Chara did no look back after the hit, which is usually the case with intent.
• Chara was not suspended or fined.
• Chara had attempted to injure Max Pacioretty several times during the game, as well as the previous game, including a Bobby Clarke style two hand slash across Pacioretty's ankle that sent him to the dressing room.
• After the game, Chara ducked out of the Bell Centre and met with Bruins media only. He blamed Pacioretty for the hit, saying he "jumped" into the stanchion. He expressed limited remorse for the result, none for the play itself.

Anyone who thinks these two hits have anything in common is in dream land.

Another issue I'd like to address is bias, which I'll do after the jump.

Montreal Canadiens fans have a reputation for being blindly biased. Sometimes that reputation is deserved, but really no more than the fans of any other franchise. Yet we still have idiocy like this:

It is especially rich to hear Bruins fans saying the word hypocrite, or accusing Habs fans of being biased. Just a small example of the things HABS fans have been saying about the Pacioretty hit today:

Where exactly is the bias? These are Habs fans calling for the best forward on the team to get no mercy, despite the team being riddled with injuries. Sounds like the most reasonable fans you could ever want. (You should probably follow them on twitter).

Does anyone remember how Bruins fans reacted after the Pacioretty hit? Or more recently the Milan Lucic hit on Ryan Miller? Hell, Lucic lead the way on that one saying he thought it was funny. Bruins fans focused on how much they hate Pacioretty and Miller, saying neither play was suspendable. Of course the Bruins are immune to supplemental discipline in this league so they wound up being right.

Still you have Bruins fans, and far less forgivable, Bruins media, extolling the various reasons why Pacioretty deserved to get his neck broken. Whether it was Joe Haggerty altering Chara's quotes to make him look more innocent (when he's not busy calling fans of other teams gay slurs), or Jimmy Murphy today, Or Kevin Paul DuPont every couple days, they're constantly beating the drum of players who get hurt by the Bruins deserving it.

There were two main sentiments after the hit last night among Habs fans; hoping Letang was okay, and saying that hit was bad. How many other franchises can say the same?

Somehow I doubt Pacioretty will be getting a gladiatorial standing ovation for injuring Kris Letang. I also doubt that Letang will be booed in Montreal for getting hurt.

And they call us biased because a few idiots abused a phone line.