Thursday, May 3, 2012

Suspension Aftermath


One of CTV Atlantic’s top stories on Wednesday evening was about the suspension of Saint John Sea Dogs captain Jonathan Huberdeau. The full story – which includes interviews with Huberdeau, head coach Gerard Gallant, and defenseman Nathan Beaulieu – can be seen here.

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League announced Tuesday that Huberdeau had been suspended two games for his hit on Charles Hudon in Game 5 of the semifinals. There was no penalty called on the play while Hudon left the game and did not return.

Huberdeau, not known for delivering borderline hits, tweeted an apology on Wednesday night.

“I would like to apologize for the hit on Charles Hudon, I know him personally, and I never wanted to hurt him, it was not intentional,” wrote Huberdeau.

Also of note, Roby St-Gelais of UniversHockey.ca informs us via Twitter that Hudon does not have a concussion, according to Sagueneens forward's father.

If you haven’t read Andrew McGilligan’s take on the situation, read it here.

As I mentioned on Twitter, a lot of fans really need to relax and just accept this. The Sea Dogs are still the favourites to win this thing. Obviously when you lose a player like Huberdeau it's a big loss but they won plenty of games this year without him and that was before the Charlie Coyle era.

Remember too that Saint John was without the services of Steven Anthony, Michael Kirkpatrick, and/or Zack Phillips for some of the games in last year’s final. They were still able to beat a very good Gatineau team in six games. 

Tickets to this weekend's games are limited but are still available. Game 1 is Friday at 8pm and can be seen on Sportsnet. 

3 comments:

  1. Our outrage isn't about the loss of Huberdeau. The Seadogs have the depth to weather this. Our outrage is directed at the QMJHL and its now obvious bias against any non Quebec team. They gladly take our money, they just don't want us to win too much. Their complete reversal of their own rational is demonstrative of this. They can't do what they did to Critchlow and Huberdeau and then dare to say they're objective. The fact that they haven't said a peep about this on the Q website further shows that even they know they're wrong and are trying to fly under the radar. Well, with these two suspensions they've shown their true colors for all to see.

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  2. I don't see a big conspiracy against Maritime teams. I see a league that is generally inconsistent when dealing with discipline issues.

    There's a report on the Q site that lists all suspensions and fines in the playoffs (under News / Discipline 2012 Playoffs). Of the 8 players who have received suspensions during the playoffs, only the Critchlow and Bussières (BAC) suspensions were mentioned in news articles on the Q site.

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  3. I'm not mad about the Huberdeau loss. I'm mad about the inconsistency, and the leagues inability to put their big boy pants on and make the tough decisions. Like overturning the Critchlow call when they found proof he did nothing wrong. Whats the point of investigating something like that then letting it go, in the teams biggest game of the season?! With Jo, yes he deserved a suspension. 2 games? In the final? Are you serious? Other big hits have gotten nothing. From every team. They don't know what they're doing and they need to figure it out.

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