Are These Suspendable Hits or Not?

Frightening scene in Philly on Saturday where David Booth of the Panthers was laid out on a hit by Flyers captain Mike Richards.

Any time you see a player motionless on the ice and then being taken off, immobilized on a stretcher, it give you pause for how dangerous a game this great sport can be.

Fortunately Booth is already out of the hospital, being released yesterday after sustaining a concussion on the play. But it was still extremely scary to watch Booth absorb the hard hit after dropping a pass to his left, and then hit the ice head-first, and remain motionless thereafter.

If you have yet to do so, check out the hit here.

(Continue to Jim Cerny's Rink Rap)

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Flyers Could Be Filthy Good This Year

The Philadelphia Flyers were the most penalized team in the National Hockey League last year. So what did GM Paul Holmgren do in the off-season? Of course, he went out and acquired two of the grittiest---dare we say, dirtiest---players in the game in Chris Pronger and Ian Laperriere. Plus, he also added a feisty battler between the pipes with the signing of goaltender Ray Emery.

This Flyers team is going to be an absolute bitch to play against this year, adding Pronger and Laperriere to the rugged and abrasive group that consists of Daniel Carcillo, Scott Hartnell, Riley Cote, Arron Asham, and Braydon Coburn.

But like the Broad Street Bully Flyers of the mid-'70's, this group is not just filthy. They are filthy good.

(Continue to Jim Cerny's Rink Rap)

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