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Curtis Glencross fined $2500 for boarding Clayton Stoner; Wild fans not pleased

Curtis Glencross

Calgary Flames’ Curtis Glencross celebrates his second goal during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Calgary, Saturday, Jan. 2, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jeff McIntosh)

AP

Calgary’s Curtis Glencross has avoided the watchful, yet inconsistent, eye of the NHL and Colin Campbell and was fined $2500 for his major boarding penalty against Minnesota’s Clayton Stoner. Glencross’ penalty came when Stoner stopped short of the boards and Glencross shoved him from behind putting Stoner in a dangerous position. Stoner wasn’t injured on the play and Glencross got to sit down for five minutes for his transgression.

Even though Glencross has a prior history of suspensions for dangerous incidents, Campbell and the NHL felt that this incident didn’t demand more action other than a fine. Minnesota fans, however, feel a bit more strongly about things considering their guy was the victim of Glencross’ questionable hit. Bryan Reynolds of Hockey Wilderness took the time out to sound off about things.

I called it last night on Twitter, saying that since Stoner was not hurt, the NHL would simply pretend it never happened. Repeat offender, violent play, dirty hit from behind, driving Stoner head first into the boards? Why would you possibly want to suspend him for that? After all, Glencross was likely just “playing with passion,” right Coli?

There’s no doubt that Glencross was guilty of a bad play here and we’ve seen other players get sat down for similar incidents, including Washington’s Alex Ovechkin who committed a similar offense against Chicago’s Brian Campbell. Once again, the league’s murky manner of handing out supplementary punishment comes into play here. The league could save themselves a lot of headaches by being more open about their reasoning behind their decisions and set a bar for how they’ll rule on things.

Of course, we’ve shouted about this for a long time now only to see absolutely nothing done about it, so asking for change to happen now is just beating a dead horse.