More positive press for the NHL

Versus! Covering the Iditarod and Davis Cup like no one else!
Oh Gary Bettman, will you ever win? Gary Bettman has withstood a lot during his tenure as commissioner of the NHL and will likely go down as the worst commissioner in the history of any sport ever (the Isiah Thomas of commissioner's, if you will). He's seen a season killing lockout, multiple players assaulting other players, betting scandals, Mike Ricci's ugliness, the Versus television agreement and now this: Newsday is reporting today that New York Rangers players spat on and verbally assaulted the New York Islanders' "Ice Girls" at the Nassau Coliseum last night. Now I can't imagine this is the first time these girls have been verbally harassed by hockey players given that they are usually around 19-22 years old and skate around the ice amongst the players wearing what amounts to a second set of skin and a handkerchief, but take a read about what went on last night in the game and tell me just how fucking disgraceful these actions were:

During commercial breaks, teams of three Ice Girls clean loose ice known as "snow" in the goal and the blue-painted goaltender's crease in front of the goal line. But Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist declined to move and used his stick to whack the squeegee Kelli Higgins, 23, was using to push the snow into a pile during the first TV timeout, knocking the butt end of the squeegee stick into her stomach.

"I said 'Excuse me' maybe two or three times," Higgins said yesterday. "He didn't move and didn't say anything, so I gave up and went around him.

"The tip of my squeegee kind of hit the tip of his stick. I don't know if he thought I did that on purpose or whatever, but he took a big windup and slashed the squeegee pretty good. It startled me a little bit. It didn't feel great, but I wouldn't say I was injured or in a ton of pain. I was shocked. "

....As she was leaving the ice, Benson skated near the boards in front of both benches, which are separated only by a panel of glass located at the center red line.

"All of a sudden, my back got wet," said Benson, who was wearing a standard outfit of pants and top that leaves the midriff area exposed. "I believe one of the Rangers players who was sitting along the wall spit on my back. It had to be on purpose because I wasn't directly in front of anyone to spit and not realize I was there. "

"....All of a sudden, these grown men are hitting Kelli and spitting on me? It was unprofessional, and they shouldn't have done it. We're just there to do our job. "

I give these girls credit, because "unprofessional" wouldn't be the way I would have described what happened if someone spit on me. Are the Rangers fucking serious with this? When asked why he made such a big deal about leaving the crease (and prior to knowing of the girl's allegations) Lundqvist told reporters he likes to stay in the crease to maintain concentration and has never been asked to leave during his prior visits. So that clears up why he prefers to remain in the crease but knocking the fucking squegee out of a girl's hand? Is Lundqvist a fucking 5 year-old? Fortunately for Lundqvist, his behavior was upstaged by his classy mates on the bench. Spitting on a girl? That's a fucking disgrace. What kind of low grade pussy spits on a girl? I can't even get my head around this it pisses me off so much. This is one time the NHL is lucky they are so irrelevant because if this was ANY other relevant sport (including bowling, poker, curling or every other sport that gets better ratings than hockey), this would be front page news and EVERYONE would be talking about it. Instead, it's a mention in the papers. If Chris Simon gets 20+ games for slashing a guy in the neck, whoever spit on this girl should get a fucking lifetime ban. What a worthless waste of fucking air the Rangers are. This is smoking gun proof that the NHL did us a favor by putting this shitstain of brand on the only network shitty enough to broadcast it to all 14 homes.