Sid vicious - 12-22-08

(We stole borrowed the headline from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)

This is few days old, but we felt compelled to bring up this video of a scrum between the Thrashers and Penguins from Thursday. During the fracas, Sidney Crosby punches Atlanta defenseman Boris Valabik from behind and below the belt:

Crosby was given a roughing minor for that attack but was it enough? Punching anyone from behind, let alone in a sensitive area like that is hardly a minor transgression in our eyes. It's obvious Valabik did something to to anger Crosby, but no one has any business striking another player in that fashion. At the very least, Crosby deserves a fine regardless if Valabik was injured or not.

Other than a few mentions in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Yahoo!, Crosby's attack has been ignored for the most part. We wonder if his status as the face of the league has anything to do with that. There doesn't seem to any sort of outrage over this on a large scale.

Seriously, could you imagine if Flyers captain Mike Richards went after Hal Gill like that? Gary Bettman would have NHL discipline czar Colin Campbell warming up an electric chair.

But given the NHL's skewered priorities, we assume if Crosby would've said something about Valabik's girlfriend, justice would've been served for that type of low blow.