Tired of taunting? So is the NHL; Stiff penalties to come for future finger wagging | ProHockeyTalk
While there’s already been an insane amount of things to take away from the Stanley Cup finals, one of the more unique and silly things we’re going to remember is the taunting. It started when Alex Burrows got away with biting Patrice Bergeron in Game 1. That was followed up by Maxim Lapierre taunting Bergeron by holding his gloved hand in his face daring him to take a bite. Not to be outdone, Milan Lucic got a bit of revenge on Burrows himself by holding up his bare fingers in his face during a scrum daring the biter to take another shot. When you add those things up and tack on the uncharacteristic taunting from Mark Recchi after scoring last night, you’ve got yourself a good old fashioned taunt-fest. If you’ve grown tired of these things though, you’ll be happy to know that future instances will be treated harshly. ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun found out from NHL VP of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy that officials will be instructed to give out a two minute penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct and assessed a ten-minute misconduct on top of that for any future instances of finger wagging in a scrum.
I don’t know. Taunting seems like a perfectly appropriate response in this case. If the league doesn’t want players to respond to unpunished biting incidents, they should try punishing the biting incidents in the first place. Sticking your fingers in the vicinity of a biter’s face is no different than sticking your face in someone’s face and saying, “go ahead, drop your gloves, I dare you.”
Actually, come to think of it, without the context of the original biting, the taunting is more weird than unsportsmanlike. In context, it’s hilarious.
I guess my point is, Alexandre Burrows‘ behavior seems uniquely taunt-worthy.