There's being a pest and then there's just being a plain-old sicko. What Brendan Lemieux did to Brady Tkachuk over the weekend falls firmly in the sicko category.
Late in the third period in L.A. on Saturday night, Lemieux and Tkachuk found themselves in a bit of a shoving match near the left corner boards behind the Ottawa net. Instead of letting them go, one of the referees stepped in and attempted to break the two up. He was unsuccessful, and Tkachuk and Lemieux went to the ground UFC-style.
Things took a very interesting turn from there when Tkachuk began signaling to the referees that Lemieux had ... wait for it ... bit him in the hand. After what appeared to be the initial bite (23-second mark), Tkachuk got a nice little sucker punch in, causing Lemieux to chomp on his hand a second and possibly third time (39-second mark). The man was hungry for some Tkachuk hand, clearly:
Just a wild sequence of events. Turns out, Lemieux may have gotten him on BOTH hands. A true chomping clinic. Here's where the evidence appears to be most clear - check out the marks on Tkachuk's right mitt:
The only thing funnier than the entire situation was the two going at it in their respective penalty boxes. It's hard to make out everything they are saying but it's clear at one point Tkachuk says "more money," likely in reference to the fact that he makes way more money than Lemieux does:
Both players were penalized four minutes for roughing, but only Lemieux was given a game misconduct, indicating that he very likely did bite Tkachuk's hand(s).
Tkachuk then did what any hockey player who had just been bitten by the other team's pest would do - he went absolutely scorched earth on the guy during his postgame presser, using words like "gutless," "joke," and, of course, "brickhead." Enjoy:
For those who can't open this up, the full quote deserves to be read below:
“This is the one time I’m going to answer this,” Tkachuk said, per the Ottawa Sun. “It was the most gutless thing somebody could ever do. This guy, you can ask any one of his teammates, nobody ever wants to play with him. This guy is a bad guy and a bad teammate, he focuses on himself all the time.
“The guy’s just a joke. He shouldn’t be in the league. This guy’s gutless. No other team wants him. He’s going to keep begging to be in the NHL, but no other team wants him, he’s an absolute joke. I can’t even wrap my head around it. People don’t even do this. He’s just a bad guy.
“It’s outrageous. Kids don’t even do that anymore. Babies do that. I don’t even know what he was thinking. He’s just a complete brick head. He’s got nothing up there. Bad guy, bad player, but what a joke he is.”
OK then!
As many have already pointed out, "complete brick head" is going to be tough to come back from, especially considering it's coming from Tkachuk, who appears to be a bit of a brick head himself. Anyway, here are Brady and Brendan's dads going at it a quarter of a century ago. Time is a flat circle:
It's too late to make the "it runs in the family" joke. Save it.
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