May 23rd - Beard of the Day: Patrick Sharp

That it really is Havlat?

I just posted this over at the Wings blog, I want to see their reaction and yours.

“First, I want to say I am a Blackhawk fan, so you might just take my opinion as b.s. but I want to get my point across. For the most part I thought it was a clean hit, I was at the game last night and was very upset about the hit, even though I was the only one in my section who saw who was the one that got "absolutely Kronwalled" but sometimes that term isn’t always good because last year during the playoffs Kronwall had many hits that should have been penalized, and had the players got injured I’m sure suspensions would have been handed out. Look at this: ”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_sHnm-tn7s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_sHnm-tn7s . At number 5, arguable elbow. At number 4, he left his feet. Number 3, good clean hit. Number 2, if you cannot see that he jumped you are blind. Number 1, amazing clean good hit. And on top of that he doesn’t answer his hits. Although some of them are clean, some of them are not, and you cannot argue that every one of those hits are clean. Number 2 is just blatant. He does not answer his dirty hits with fights, I’ve seen millions of players going to ask him to fight after hits like the one on Havlat. There is a code in hockey, and Detroit does not seem to abide by it. The Cleary hit before the winter classic on Kane, was arguably a high hit. And you might argue against that but nonetheless you are making a huge hit on the team’s best player, and numerous players on the Hawks asked Cleary to fight, to answer his hit. And he didn’t. That is what I don’t understand about this team. I have all the respect in the world for them for how great they are, the front office and the players. How they draft player after player that plays perfectly into their system. It is a great team, but I lose a lot of that respect when a team doesn’t answer the code. And if you’re denying the code, then you’re denying NHL hockey.

I respect but hate Kronwall because he is a Redwing, and you may or may not respect him but I’m sure you hate Havlat because he is a Blackhawk. Players are going to be asking Kronwall to answer his hit, and if he drops the gloves, I will be very, very surprised."