As I watched, and then re-watched, and then re-re-watched in amazement as an unprofessionally professional athlete in Esa Lindell performed all three acts of his shameless one man show entitled 'Bambi On Ice' in the middle of a tightly contested Stanley Cup playoff game, I couldn't help but wonder what type of supplemental discipline he'd face. A postseason suspension seemed a bit too stiff for temporarily compromising the integrity of the sport, but the write-off of a mere fine felt like too much of a slap on the wrist for the embarrassment of eternally tarnishing his entire family's name. As you can imagine, I was at quite the loss for a punishment fitting of the crime of...well...the fraudulent reporting of multiple felonies. Then something that went against the 'WTF' nature of a postseason whose annual unpredictability appears to have been shot up with steroids this Spring happened...
Esa Lindell let a relatively light Pat Maroon shove launch him into a full-on breast stroke only for him to pop his head back up for a breath just in time to see a tale of justice get poetically penned at his expense. Now, I'm more than fine with nothing more than a fine, because the number on that check will pale in comparison to the amount of respect he cost himself in the locker room by flopping around like he was just pulled fresh out of Alaskan ice while his defensive assignment made sure he also paid the price of a pivotal Game 3. Credit the Big Rig for dominating a net-front battle in familiar fashion, but his combatant, for the fourth time in a single game, put up the fight of James Harden mid-jump shot in looking like a widow fainting at the funeral. But hey, little did he know that in doing so he'd be gifting us the happiest of storybook endings to what was the saddest of attempts to draw a 25-to-life sentence during a playoff hockey game.
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