Give me the biggest hockey man you have. No, it’s bigger than that. Make him huge. Make him tall, thick and dense. It’s a real stone slab. Give him a powerful slapshot and have the will to use it. Make the fastest, hardest and heaviest shots in sports. Make him want to use it. Leave him weaponless and kick Jesus out of that puck as hard and often as possible. Let’s see how long that puck can take. Let them be punished for their crimes. He’s big, small and hard as a beef, and all the laws of physics conspire to magnify his aggression. Woe to those in that path!
Have him pound the puck again. And so on. Torque and crowbar and malice are his compatriots, and his allies have abandoned them. There is no goalkeeper coming to the rescue to cover this. No whistle provides a temporary truce and can be abused on other days as well. Note: Again, he is fostering again. This time too, he has his whip ready. The beatings continue until morale improves or ownership changes. Neither comes. The puck flows back to him. What have you done in your past life to deserve this? Why are they making their children watch this massacre? He is now a disc of rubber and pain. In the world, only he and the giant man’s staff exist. Huge Man Cheats Again
Tage Thompson hitting five one-timers in a row in about 30 seconds Thursday night was probably the most entertaining thing to happen all season. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t score in the sequence. It doesn’t matter that the Sabers lost the game by a score of I don’t care to. Did you see him beat the shit out of it? The mood is impeccable in Buffalo as the first-place Sabers are poised to break a 14-year playoff drought. Listen to the crowd as Thompson raises his stick for the third time. Fans chanting “Shoo-chop-chuck” must be in heaven. And God bless Rasmus Dahlin and Josh Norris for force-feeding them like they were making foie gras. When someone big calls you, you must answer.
On a night when Auston Matthews’ season likely ended with a dirty hit, the Leafs were disciplined for failing to retaliate. When William Eklund scored perhaps the prettiest and certainly most airborne goal of the year, the Sharks wore EBUG, who had played his final collegiate game the night before. When Connor McDavid exchanged punches; As several fellow defectors traveled more than 90 minutes to witness a meaningless late-season showdown between the league’s worst and third-worst offenses, Tage Thompson was the clear highlight. Sometimes hockey is about grace, toe drags, stretch passes and exquisite delicacy. Sometimes it’s about the biggest man on the ice making the helicopter sing.
