Last Thursday in my musings, I briefly talked about Don Cherry’s latest controversial spat against Brendan Shanahan and NHL HQ over the recent player safety rulings. Since then, several other people around hockey have come out of the woodwork to take shots at Shanny and the suspensions he has been handing out.

Hockey Night in Canada’s panelist, Eric Francis, has even gone as far to suggest that some have privately asked Bettman to remove Shanahan from his role as Senior Vice President of Player Safety.

Now I expect wannabe tough guys like Cherry to espouse their pseudo masculine bullsh*t against the recent rulings. After all, Cherry needs attention like a lonely fat kid needs X-Box. But the fact that others are spitting out their pacifiers and crying for Shanahan‘s head annoys me.

If there is anyone at HQ more capable of this job, it’s #14 himself.

Brendan is not some former lawyer who’s never touched a hockey stick, or some washed up coach with old grudges. This is a guy who once picked his teeth off the ice after a shift and kept playing. This is a guy who stood up for his teammates and took on Donald Brashear. I mean he’s a 3 time Stanley Cup Champion, and some people think he’s not right for this job? Really?

As far as the suspensions themselves, most of the whining has centered around Brendan Smith’s hit, James Wisniewski’s, and now P.M. Bouchard’s high stick. But the days of mealy mouthed Colin Campbell trying to defend himself are over.

Now anyone and everyone can see exactly what Shanahan’s looking to eliminate from the game. He regularly posts videos fully explaining his thought process on these suspensions and they’re all phenomenal.

Shanahan isn’t batting .300 on these suspensions, he’s batting a thousand. And if the NHL brass has any balls, they’ll do what Shanahan used to do and have his back.

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