Hockey Has Gone Soft After ECHL Player Gets A 10-Minute Penalty For Shooting A Chicken Nugget Into The Crowd
It was only a matter of time before this day arrived. We've seen youth leagues ban hitting until kids are old enough to vote. We've seen major junior leagues ban fighting. The game has been getting softer and softer, but this might be the final blow.
There was a time when Mike Milbury went up into the stands during an NHL game and literally beat a fan over the head with his own shoe. Shoes in 1979 were heavy as shit. That was basically like beating someone over the head with a brick. A player going into the stands to fight a fan, and he pretty much received a slap on the wrist for it. Times were different back then. The game was still pure. And it sure as shit wasn't the same game as what we saw yesterday in the ECHL.
So let me get this straight--some snot nosed little brat decides to launch a chicken nugget onto the ice. This Kirill Tyutyayev character then shoots the nugget off of the ice (a player could have tripped on the nugget, slammed their head into the boards, and suffered a serious spinal injury), and he gets tossed in the sin bin for the next 10 minutes. That penalty happened around 9 minutes into the 2nd period while the Toledo Walleye were up 2-0. And then here's what happened the rest of the day.
10-minute misconduct for getting a chicken nugget off the ice, and then the Walleye proceed to get 6 goals stuffed down their throat to lose 6-2.
What would the ref prefer he do in this situation? Eat the nugget? It's not like that little kid threw any dipping sauces down on the ice as well. Maybe if there was a nice ramekin of honey mustard to go along with it, you could argue that Tyutyayev made a mistake here by not housing that nugget. But a plain nugget from the concession stands of an ECHL game? Something tells me that kid threw the nugget onto the ice for a reason, and because those nuggets were trash.
A situation like this needs to be reviewable. The ref should have to taste one of the nuggets and be able to assess if a penalty is warranted or not. I don't know if the ECHL has the technology available for video replay or not, but this seems like as good a time as ever to make it happen.
Sidenote: Pretty impressive he was able to launch that nugget out of play. I feel like it would be easy to flub something like that. But he got a great release on that thing. Would love to know what row it ended up in.