The Marchand hit.

In case you missed it Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins was suspended by the NHL for a dirty hit on the Vancouver Canuck's defenseman Sami Salo that occurred on Saturday afternoon.  He was suspended for 5 games.

If you missed the hit here's a link for youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGD5DbljtfE

In the play the Vancouver Canucks are controlling the puck in the Bruins zone, during the play Marchand is covering Salo at the defensive point, throughout the play the two tangle up and exchange cross checks and a few other shots.  When Brad Marchand (5"9, 183) goes down to get the puck in the corner Sami Salo (6"3', 215) drops down to make a body check.  As Salo turns to put his shoulder into Marchand, Marchand drops his knee and puts his shoulder into the back of Salo's knee, flipping him head over heels over, Salo landed on his head and left the game with a concussion.  Marchand was issued a 5 minute major and a game misconduct for clipping, as well as the suspension.

Clipping in hockey and what Marchand did is completely dangerous and cowardly, clipping can cause lower body damage to knee's, ankles, hamstrings, quads, and hips, not to mention the potential danger of the player landing on their head.  It is just as dangerous if not more dangerous than boarding and/or head shots, both of which the league is trying to get rid of.

Here's my opinion of Sami Salo
Salo is a solid veteran defenseman.  He's a good player, decent offense, great defensively, and he play's physical.  For those that don't see much of Western Conference teams because of the late night times they play, Salo play's a lot like Nick Kronwall of the Red Wings, but he has a little more size than Kronwall.  There's no doubt that when Salo plays physical he takes full advantage of his size.  The guy plays clean though, when he hits he targets the center of the chest or shoulders, he keeps his stick down, he keeps is knee's in to avoid knee-on-knee hits, and he never targets a player's head.

Now this is my opinion of Brad Marchand:
Brad Marchand is a rat. Brad Marchand is a coward. Brad Marchand takes shots at players, runs his mouth, and hides behind some of the bigger/tougher players on the Bruins such as Milan Lucic, Shawn Thorton, and Johnny Boychuk. Over the 3 years he's been in the league I've seen him constantly run his mouth and take dirty cross checks on players and skate away from them and reject most requests to fight (when hockey players fight they usually ask each other first if they want to fight, especially when 2 fighters go against each other, it's one of the coolest occurrences in all of sports). Marchand deserves every game he's suspended for his hit on Salo.

In reaction to the suspension, the Boston Bruins (players, coaches, GM) are all taking a stance that it was in self defense why Marchand hit him. Marchand claimed that he had a meeting with the NHL disciplinary heads that said this play was legal, here's the problem, it's legal for Marchand to drop to a knee to avoid a hit.  However if he drops to a knee and makes body contact and causes a player to fall it's a penalty, usually clipping.

That's a view point from a hockey player in case you're confused why play was dirty, and why the punishment for the play was handed out.

If you're interested in the NHL's viewpoint, here's the video from Brendan Shanahan Senior Vice President of the department of Player Safety.

http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=60&id=148388&navid=DL|NHL|home