White Horse’s Casper Gillberg has been banned for a historic thirteen months for a tackle on referee Jesper Ek.
Only a fool would say that this is the hardest feeling.
I wouldn’t have protested even if it had been a double take.
There is no defense for Gelberg’s smash, as poor referee Ek flew to the touchline and broke his arm.
The closest opponent, which I think Gillberg was looking for from the beginning, is two meters away.
– I’m ashamed, and the 22-year-old White Horse player has already made that clear.
He vomited immediately and there was nothing else to do after seeing the TV images.
He did not try to shirk his responsibility, but of course that is not enough. Defense was necessary, and a long suspension was necessary.
It is not only about protecting judges, but also about attracting new judges in the future.
Even OJ Simpson’s defense team was unsuccessful
It can take enough crap as it is.
I wouldn’t have protested if Gillberg was suspended for the rest of next season either.
This cannot be defended.
Not even OJ Simpson’s defense team was able to get him acquitted.
The suspension now runs through Dec. 31, 2024, and Gilberg has time to celebrate two birthdays before he can play hockey again.
I can sympathize a little with the 22-year-old, who has his own explanation for the collision that seems at least believable.
That he tensed his body to protect himself before the collision that he considered inevitable.
But it’s still a brain drain, and TV images provide support for other solutions and several ways to avoid collisions.
Thirteen months is certainly a difficult period for a 22-year-old, even if he has made himself known as a tough guy who has been subjected to plenty of suspensions minutes into his career.
I hope I never have to see anything like this again
In addition, he was suspended for six weeks last season, an extremely long suspension, and is considered a repeat offender by the disciplinary committee.
I saw this situation too, when he played in Nyköping and made a brutal head tackle on Vasby’s Niels Bohlen in an Eitan hockey match.
Bolin suffered a severe concussion and a fracture under one eye.
If this was one of the most brutal tackles on a referee I have ever seen, the tackle on Pauline falls into the same category when it comes to head tackles.
I just hope I never have to see anything like this again.
This sweep of the referee makes me think of the SM semi-final between Modo and Djurgården in 1998.
Modo defender Jean-Axel Alavara then headed towards legendary referee Thomas “Cubin” Andersson and brought him down, but with a force far from the same as the actual case.
The sentence was a standard eight-month suspension, although there were plenty of mitigating circumstances.
I felt that this punishment was too harsh
In the NHL, I remember when Calgary defenseman Dennis Wideman got a ruling in a cross-checking case in 2015.
He made 20 appearances, but the NHL has always had much shorter suspensions than here in Sweden.
There, they imposed a lot of fines instead, and Wideman received a record fine of $500,000.
That’s almost half a million in Swedish krona.