Photo by Brendan Sheridan of HockeyShopped
1/22/13 vs. Winnipeg, 20:00, 2nd Period
Kombatants: Matt “The Blaine Bomber” Hendricks (6’, 211 lbs, 36 officially sanctioned hockeyfights.com NHL bouts) vs. Jim “The Petoskey Pummeler” Slater, (6’, 195 lbs, 14 officially sanctioned hockeyfights.com NHL bouts
Analysis: Let’s imagine for a second that you’ve completely outplayed a team at home. You’ve outshot them by a two-to-one margin at the end of a period, the crowd is dead (except for the boo birds, who are out in force), and the home team looks gassed. You have a comfortable 4-1 lead and are coasting.
So why in the world, if you’re Jim Slater, do you get in a fight with Matt Hendricks here? What is there to gain? Granted, the Caps didn’t really threaten the Jets lead until late in the third period, but why even give them the chance to gain any type of momentum going into the penultimate period?
Has the world learned nothing from Max Talbot/Dan Carcillo?
Verdict: Hendricks, for simply being smarter than a sack of wet puppies.
1/22/13 vs. Winnipeg, 14:31, 3rd Period.
Kombatants: Matt “The Blaine Bomber” Hendricks (6’, 211 lbs, 37 officially sanctioned hockeyfights.com NHL bouts) vs. Chris “Hammer Of” Thorburn (6’3, 230 lbs, 62 officially sanctioned hockeyfights.com NHL bouts)
Analysis: A classic “we’ll see you next game” fight. It’s at the end of a game where you’ve played really terribly, and of course it’s time to “send a message” that “next time won’t be so easy”. You could call it a “gratuitous use of quotes” fight.
Verdict: Eh. Thorburn I guess? But bringing up Thorburn is always an excuse to post one of my all-time favorite GIFs, which comes courtesy of Mr. John Erskine:
So that makes us all winners.
