That’s weird. It really doesn’t look like much at all; the only guess I have is that Glencross’ elbow or forearm maybe clipped Drury in the right side of his face very quickly but with a lot of force?

And Glencross got three games, while Richie got nothing? Granted, Drury hadn’t played the puck nor was he all that near to it while Booth had just played the puck, but still … that’s some maddening inconsistency.

At the :08 mark, it looks like the hit is either elbow or upper arm to the head. It’s almost definitely not forearm, and is definitely below the shoulder. Glencross definitely does not leave his feet. The replay at :40 is at a very poor angle.

It doesn’t appear Drury was skating particularly low, and he never had the puck. The fact that he didn’t have the puck and was moving in a straight line is why I think Glencross was suspended – it was already an illegal hit (interference), and he could easily have aimed for the body. Richie’s hit came right after Booth dumped the puck off and was adjusting body position. Additionally, Richie’s hit looked normal. Glencross’ looked a lot closer to an elbow.

As this trend of injuries continues, I think the thing that disturbs me the most is how long it takes for the officials to stop play. The official rules are:

When a player is injured so that he cannot continue play or go to his bench, the play shall not be stopped until the injured player’s team has secured possession of the puck. If the player’s team is in possession of the puck at the time of injury, play shall be stopped immediately unless his team is in a scoring position.
In the case where it is obvious that a player has sustained a serious injury, the Referee and/or Linesman may stop the play immediately

But I haven’t seen the refs exercising that second, “serious injury” clause (except maybe when there’s obvious blood, as in the case with Cam Ward). What are they choosing to define as serious, if concussions don’t count? As a hockey player myself, it’s hard for me to watch any guy be down for 10 or 20 seconds without a stoppage in play. We’re seeing all these questionable hits and all these players going down hard, and yet the refs don’t seem to be paying any better attention to the guy on the ground. I don’t want there to suddenly be a trend toward milking injuries with players staying down when they’re not really hurt, either, but I’m getting pretty mad at the refs. Most of these guys are crumpling to the ice in ways that are pretty hard to fake convincingly, and while the league seems to be happy to hand out suspensions after the fact if it’s a non-superstar players, no one seems to give a crap about the guy on the ice as it’s happening. I’m sorry to be repetitive, but it can’t be good for the game when my 9 year old niece is on the couch asking her dad “why aren’t they helping him?”