But why? Why this hit, this time?

It's what Bruce Arthur of the post asked in his Opinion, National Post · Friday, Mar. 11, 2011

 http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/tipping+point/4420898/story.html

There is a reason why this hit is different.

As a chid, living in Montreal, and having arrived from Italy only a few years before, I watched Bobby Rousseau (my favourite player then) lying on the ice. I believe he had been hit by a puck in the head. He was there for a while. He wore a helmet after that, and then was traded. That stuck with me because the play seemed to have stopped forever. And then helmets slowly began to show up more and more. Mind you there was the death of the player at the hands of a double check by two Golden Seals players in 1968. That changed the culture, as well.

Over the years there were many incidents in hockey. The cheap shot hit by Chelios on Brian Propp 1989 was another one. Propp is down, outish, barely moving, and a balloon of blood under his head widened gradually on the ice surface.

There have been others. To my recollection what they all had in common was where they took place, awful and devastating as they were. They happened on the ice, within the ice surface, but more important, they happened within the boards... within the air space the boards define, even if many players have, over the years, made major contact with the boards and the "glass" partition and some were badly hurt as a result.

Then came Chara's hit.   A different world. A different class of hit.  For the first time we saw a player's head being guided by an opposing player outside the air space defined by the boards and then thrust, at the very last minute, into a vertical support pole that seemed capable of decapitating the player on the spot or the very least kill him on impact. It took me back to the 2010 winter olympics. Simple as that. No hit has ever come close. Even more serious hits with more devastating results were not as violent even when they were. What we have here is Chara taking Pacioretty into a non-man's land area of the rink (air space) where the body, or at least the head and the rest of the body, could be separated on impact or at least give that impression. And then the noise.  The actual hit. That, too was right back to the 2010 Winter Olympics nightmare.

I felt sick. And like Farber writing for sports illustrated, I thought he was dead.

The other thing to remember: two drivers traveling at 80 miles an hour, side by side, are not moving fast at all when looking at each other. They are actually still. Yet for those watching from the side of the road, the cars are going incredibly fast.

It's the same with skaters. Pacioretty and Chara for a good couple of seconds were traveling fast together but still (motionless) together as well. Fast to spectators, but not to the players or even Carey Price, a goalie, whose eyes, in a sense, have to move as fast as the speeding skaters in order to be within the same aerodynamic speed and stillness. That's why to the players on the ice, they could see what you and I couldn't.

That's why  Carey Price stated, "It wasn't fast, it was slow, actually. Chara took two or three strides and then hit him". That tells you how the players see the play on the ice. It's like when we, as spectators, are having a hard time following the puck and suddenly before you know it someone has already slapped it and the opposing goalie saved it. It is simply easier to see the driver traveling next to you when you're going the same speed, than when looking at him fly by while standing at the side of the road.

The other thing I don't get and has only been talked about on the French sports network.... there was an initial interference by Chara, with Pacioretty already having disposed of the puck. Then Chara remains in interference mode, stays with Pacioretti,  then the extra strides are taken and then Chara's left hand guides Pacioretty into the stanchion.  The geography of this hit was actually very long. Two infractions by Chara occurred within seconds: Interference and then an illegal hit, both infractions while Pacioretty did not have possession of the puck.

As Pacioretty's head clears no doubt we will hear more of what Chara may have whispered to Pacioretty or vice versa... and then we'll know if Chara knew or didn't which player he was guiding into the non-man's land boardless airspace and stanchion.