Pronger Suspension Reactions

I posted yesterday that I would not be shocked if Pronger received a suspension from the NHL sue to what I thought was a deliberate elbow to the head of McAmmond.

It turns out that Pronger was indeed suspended for one game today by the National Hockey League.

On a side note, Pronger typically wears his jersey sleeves pushed up past the bottom of his elbow pads,  which led me to notice that he wears Jofa elbow pads.  His style of elbow pad (see similar Jofa elbow pad in picture) has a very knobby/sharp elbow cap that is the most dangerous of all manufacturers- in my opinion.  Pronger’s choice of equipment turned out to be very unfortunate for McAmmond.

As you might guess, there were a lot of people throwing their two cents in on this suspension, so I rounded up a few opinions to share here at NHL Digest:

CBC obviously didn’t have an opinion one way or another, but they did have some nice quotes from both the league and the coaches.

ESPN has posted video of the news conference where Pronger was quoted as saying:

“It was just a reaction play. I just stepped up to make a hit,” Pronger told reporters. “You’ve got to suffer the consequences of what came down. … Hopefully, Dean’s OK. There’s no ill-will or malicious intent.”

Mirtle has a good analysis of Scott Burnside’s piece and also lists a long line of Pronger’s past infractions.

Paul Kukla has quoted reactions from McAmmond, Bryan Murray, and John Muckler who are disappointed, to say the least, and want to see some action taken on blows to the head this offseason.

Zanstorm eases the media frenzy and makes the case that the elbow was not intentional. He also wondered what kind of elbow pads Pronger wears, not that it would have mattered that much.

Christy from Behind the Jersey notes that this is Pronger’s sixth suspension of his career. Should we feel sorry for him?

Canes Country referred to Pronger’s name as being the definition of dirty hockey player in the dictionary.

Jes wanted to see Pronger get at least two games…no luck this time Mr. Hockey Rants.

Tony at Skate2Stick has the entire transcript of the news conference announcing the suspension…check it out.