The KHL Team That Let One Guy Put Their Entire Roster Through The Gauntlet Is Pressing Charges

This is the "brawl" that caused Barys/Kunlun to end after 3 minutes. Damir Ryspayev should be banned from hockey. pic.twitter.com/b6OpcuUf5i

— Jeff Veillette (@JeffVeillette) August 8, 2016

Red Star Kunlun has gone to police and filed a report on Damir Ryspayev. Kunlun's president of hockey ops says they will press charges.

— Aivis Kalniņš (@A_Kalnins) August 9, 2016

You know what, I'm not even surprised. Not just because Red Star Kuhlun has a pretty solid case that Damir Ryspayev was guilty of about a dozen acts of assault and has clear video evidence to back it all up, but because they lost every ounce of their pride when they let him drag the entirety of their roster around the rink like rag dolls. They honestly have nothing to lose by going to the police and putting the big bad enforcer - that's literally the same size as all his victims - behind bars. Sure, I would make the argument that just because you can do something doesn't me you should, but I didn't get carried around by my back like I just got clubbed to death by a caveman. I don't know what's it like to become so emasculated that tattling to law enforcement after events that occurred as the result of sport doesn't make you feel any worse about yourself. Grown men that covered their faces like they had prom the next day as a one man wrecking crew jabbed them into submission? Nope, I have never in my life suffered from such a drastic shortage of dignity. Therefore, I can't say that criminal charges aren't the only way to feel a sense of accomplishment and fill the void of the self respect they left pathetically withering all over the ice.

I can, however, say that this does nothing for the perception of Russian hockey players in North America. As if it wasn't bad enough that franchises already thought they were too lazy to back check or too soft to go into the corners? Now they have to worry about them taking legal action every time someone engages them physically? This might be the Kovalchuk contract catastrophe talking, but if I'm an NHL executive I have putting a line through ever Russian prospect on the board. There's just not enough Datsyuk's out there to risk drafting one of these pansies that think that getting one-punched in a hockey game affords them the right to call for imprisonment. Lord knows how many times they would try to go to trial during a 7 game playoff series.