NHL To Simon: Pack Your Crap And Get Out

Because we've never really shown it, here's the tomahawk chop by the Islanders' Chris Simon on the Rangers' Ryan Hollweg from Thursday. After mulling the attack over the weekend, the NHL doled out a 25-game suspension for Hollweg for thrusting his neck at Simon in a vicious manner. Or, no, the other way around actually. Sorry.

Just to prove how fast hockey is, the announcer initially says of the foul "I think he's going to get five minutes for that." Try the remainder of the regular season, plus the playoffs (If the Islanders play fewer than 10 playoff games this year, the suspension will carry over to next season). That's an NHL record, which confuses us. Because as bad as this is, it doesn't seem quite as vicious as some other shenanigans on frozen water surfaces we've seen, such as the infamous incident below, for which Marty McSorley drew 23 games. At least Simon's clout wasn't premeditated.

And something we hadn't realized before: A great Billy Packer moment, as one of the announcers says while watching the replay: "In all fairness to McSorley, I think he was trying to tap him on his shoulder." Yeeeaahhh. That's what he was doing.

Simon Suspended For Regular Season, Playoffs [MSNBC]