Phoenix Coyotes GM Don Maloney delivered quite the sound bite today while opining on all the outrage in Chicago over Raffi Torres’ hit on Marian Hossa.
“You would think Raffi murdered a bus load of children the way he’s portrayed here in Chicago,” Maloney said, as reported by Sarah McLellan of the Arizona Republic.
Not that Maloney thinks the hit was clean. He concedes that Torres “made an error in judgment,” but he thinks the “outcry on so many different fronts is over the top.”
“Obviously an offense occurred,” said Maloney, “but it was not a situation where he took his stick and hit someone in the head. Probably two hundredths of a second it went from being a regular hit to being a little late hit.”
Now, many would argue it wasn’t the lateness of the hit that upset people the most; it was the fact Torres left his feet to deliver it.
But let’s not that get in the way of what Maloney is implying – essentially, he’s saying the local media is blowing the whole thing out of proportion because it was a Blackhawks player that got hurt.
Maloney wasn’t alone in condemning all the attention Torres’ hit is receiving in Chicago. Coyotes coach Dave Tippett came out and said what a lot of Canucks fans are thinking in the wake of the Torres hit.
“[Duncan] Keith’s hit on [Daniel] Sedin a few weeks ago there was none of the hoopla,” said Tippett. “There was people saying it was a bad hit, but not to the extent this is.
“Every team and every team’s media protects its own team. That’s the nature of the beast here. You ask people in Vancouver right now what they think of the Keith hit, they’re probably thinking the same thing you guys think of the Torres hit.”
Related:
Daniel Sedin “absolutely” expects to play Game 4
Torres suspended indefinitely, in-person disciplinary hearing on Friday — will miss Game 4
