FanHouse Violence

By the end of the day, we may know how the NHL decides to punish Philadelphia's Jesse Boulerice for having Canucks forward Ryan Kesler taste-test his stick without asking first. The predictions, naturally, are pouring in. FanHouse's Jes Golbez asks you for yours, and opines that Boulerice should be out until 2008. ESPN's EJ Hradek thinks he should receive the Downie Minimum of 20 games. William Houston of the Globe & Mail actually believes it should be a 40-gamer -- not likely, unless Boulerice was also running his own gambling ring on the side. Even Kesler appointed himself junior commissioner of the NHL for a few moments and called for a suspension of "a serious amount of games," while teammate Matt Cooke set the suspension at 25.

Suspending Boulerice is the easy part; unless the NHL seriously minimizes the incident with a paltry punishment, anywhere between 20-30 games will be seen as "getting it right." The harder part is taking the next step and punishing those who have also contributed to yet another black-eye for hockey's ever-tarnishing image. That's why it's time to...

Any of you Nationals fans (or heck, you Nationals players) have any ambition to punch GM Jim Bowden? Believe it or not, you wouldn't be the first, as Bowden explains in his column for The Examiner:

The first time I had to cut a player, it went ... poorly. It was 1986 and I was an assistant director of player development and scouting for Pittsburgh. I told the player in question he was going to be unconditionally released.

The player looked at me kind of funny, jumped over the desk and punched me. It's never been that bad again. But it's always a tough process.

And people wonder why Jim Bowden will only cut players while wearing a cup and a beekeeper's mask.

Let's take a look at the early line as to who might be the next player to punch Jim Bowden if he was the next one cut (after the jump):