OHL player suspended for entire season

[Meathead]

TORONTO -- The Ontario Hockey League came down hard on Erie Otters forward Michael Liambas on Wednesday, suspending him for the entire season after a hit that left his opponent with serious head injuries.

Liambas was assessed a match penalty for boarding after his hit on Ben Fanelli of the Kitchener Rangers in a game last Friday.

Fanelli's helmet flew off and he fell unconscious to the ice before he was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance. He was later airlifted to Hamilton General Hospital with skull and facial fractures.

Fanelli's condition has been upgraded from critical to serious, but stable.

League commissioner David Branch issued a statement on the suspension after a league review.

"Players must understand they shall be held accountable for their actions," Branch said. "We must all work towards improving the level of respect players have towards opposing players and the game in general.

http://www.tsn.ca/chl/story/?id=297187

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ok, i DESPISE cheap shotting and feel it should be handled harshly when it happens

but this wasnt one of those situations and this suspension is WAY WAY overboard

wth didnt they take into account that the skater turned at the last second? why didnt they take into account that the helmet came flying off, likely applied too loosely?

this is so obviously a knee jerk reaction to the tragic outcome. its patently unfair to the suspended player, already very upset that it was him that happened to be the checker in this situation, now you slap a season long ban on him for a hit that would have been borderline boarding if the skater wasnt hurt?!??!

cmon

you tell a guy to finish his checks and then when he does and the guy he checks decides to turn his back at the last second and gets badly hurt you punish the **** out of the checker?!? i see no malice, no intent to injure, on a play that happens five to ten times every game

totally and completely unreasonable. they are acting like the guy took a two handed lumberjack to his head when all he was doing is trying to finish a check. its a very physical game and theres always the chance of serious injury. just because a one in a million bad luck circumstance gets a guy hurt doesnt mean you throw the damn book at the other player who was trying to play hockey

idk wtf anybody sees in that replay that shows the kind of intent to injure that would warrent such a harsh punishment. hell, im not even sure it should have been more than a single boarding penalty, and that only because technically the skater had his back to him and you have to encourage checkers to do everything they can to avoid that even if it happens at the last second

if they are going to punish somebody like this they should change the god damn rules to outlaw checks near the boards. im sorry but thats some bull**** right there

[Meathead]

somebody on bbi said that the checker took a long run at the skater before the hit but this is the only replay ive seen and theres only a second before the hit on this one. if anybody finds a longer version that might shed some light on it pls post it thx

[rbochan]

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Dude came CHARGING in from the blue line, and it wasn't even close to his first offense. He was looking to do damage and that's just what he did. **** him.

[DMBcrew36]

And it isn't the first time Liambas has made a dirty hit.

[JD]

A major charge.. but the guy turned his back at the last second.. it would have been shoulder to shoulder. Hope the guy recovers fully.

[SABURZFAN]

A major charge.. but the guy turned his back at the last second.. it would have been shoulder to shoulder. Hope the guy recovers fully.


he damn near decapitated him with the elbow and stick. there's no reason why his left hand should have been close to the blade of his own stick. that was a blatant cheap shot.

[RockStar36]

Cheap shot or not, a full season long suspension ending his junior career is way too much. They tried to match the punishment with the injury.

[DraftBoy]

Hits like this are what's wrong with Hockey.

Should of just banned him from the league, what a disgusting display.

[Meathead]

- i still cant see any evidence of 'flying in from the blue line'. maybe it happened but not in any replay ive seen

- i cant see any elbow or other evidence of cheap shot tactics. from what i can see he hits him shoulder to shoulder while the skater is almost touching the boards, which is legal

- the skater turns his back at the last second. why, idk, but its also the skaters responsibility to not put himself in a bad position when a checker is bearing down on him

- i have no idea about the checkers reputation

- after reading everything everyone has had to say about this and watching every replay available (just these two so far) i still dont see any evidence of a cheap shot or an attempt to injure

how is this check any different from the thousands of checks behind the net that we see every season? its a routine play, hockey is a contact sport, so why EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY is this a 'bad' check?

[Meathead]

Cheap shot or not, a full season long suspension ending his junior career is way too much. They tried to match the punishment with the injury.
thats exactly what it looks like to me - and i cant even see any reason why it would be called a cheap shot

the checker must be a known chris neil type total douche or something because from what is on this replay i see absolutely no reason for a suspention and barely even a charging penalty

it looks to me like the checker comes in for a standard behond the net check, the skater turns at the last second, and unfortunately gets a one in a million freak injury. that certainly doesnt warrent a season long suspension

i just dont get what everybody else apparently sees in this situation

[Meathead]

it looks to me like the checker comes in for a standard behond the net check, the skater turns at the last second, and unfortunately gets a one in a million freak injury

i think the bold might be whats missing. idk for sure but let me take a shot at a guess anyway

maybe those who find serious fault with this hit (not the result, the hit) feel like the checker should have pulled up once he saw the defensemens back

based on whats here i feel its just too late for the dman to spin around like that. its unfair to wait that long to turn your back and expect not to get hit. again, right now in these clips i cant see how far or fast the checker comes in before the hit but what i see now happens several times a game. if im in a checking league and i see that forward coming in aggressively the last thing im doing is spinning my back on him at the last moment possible. why the hell would i do that?

it doesnt look to me like the checker tried to pile drive him, the dman made himself extremely vulnerable to an onrushing forechecker at literally the last instant possible to give the checker the slimmest of chances to pull up, then expects the checker to control himself so much that he can still pull up every time. in that situation, and independent of any intent the checker had, it was a foolish move by a dman who certainly didnt deserve that result but directly contributed to it happening. at the very least he f'ed up big time too

the other more subtle issue is that you dont want to force that level of passivity in forechecking. idk maybe its different in juniors but intimidating the defense with the threat of getting checked on your ass is an integral part of forechecking in the hack league checking league hockey i played in. certainly not pile driving guys into the boards, the checker absolutely has responsibility to care for the safety of the skater. but the skater cant put himself in obvious danger either

lets put it this way, i would never spin my back to the forechecker at that moment and would never coach for that to be done. seems to me everybody is putting that all on the checker and i just dont see why thats fair in this instance

[Demon]

Hits like this are what's wrong with Hockey.

Should of just banned him from the league, what a disgusting display.

What this player did, was a 2 minute penalty. There is nothing wrong with this play, except that the guy was unlucky and got very hurt on it. The hitter, did what he has been told to do MANY times. It's what his coach tells him to do. It's what that play is designed for the player to chase after the puck, hit the player, get a loose puck, win the possession and wait for his teammates. The guy turned around at the last second and the play was boarding. I don't think a suspension was warranted.

However, my problem is this. OHL is upset and wants to end these type of injuries. Suspending a guy is NOT a solution. They need to come up with some kind of solution and i think OHL taken up on themselves to make a crazy long suspension, now they need to try out something new, a new rule or whatever in their league to prevent this. Suspending the guy all year is not the solution to this problem.

[Forward_Lateral]

Hockey is being pussified like the NFL.

[RockStar36]

He does have a bad reputation in the OHL. I've seen enough of their games to know that much. However, I totally agree with Meathead. They were writing here that he may receive 20 games and then the season long suspension came down and I don't get it.

Sure he may have been charging from the blue line, but the guy did have the puck until the last second. It wasn't like he went after someone without the puck. And on top of that, the skater turned awkwardly and put himself in a horrible position to take the hit.

Again, they took the suspension and tried to match the injury because the kid is in pretty bad shape.