Fans Call for Jennifer Botterill's Firing After Fiery On-Air Clash with Kevin Bieksa on HNIC

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Chris Gerics
November 4, 2024 (2:45 PM)

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Fans are outraged about Jennifer Botterill's retort to Kevin Bieksa regarding the end of the Montreal Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins game and want her gone.

During the game between the Canadiens and the Penguins, Montreal star Juraj Slavkofsky took a nasty shot to the chin, and while it's hard to see if it was an elbow; it was brutal nonetheless:

So toward the end of the game, in the dying seconds, Montreal Canadiens defenseman and enforcer extraordinaire Arber Xhekaj took offense to the hit on Slavkofsky with his own malicious play, trying to go knee-on-knee then getting into a skirmish:

Both Pittsburgh and Montreal fans have their own opinions on the matter, but two prominent TV analysts disagreed wholeheartedly. Jennifer Botterill and Kevin Bieksa often do not see eye-to-eye, but it escalated during their discussion of events:

"The game is over... I think right there is the right time for Xhekaj to go at a guy who took out your star player earlier in the game. That for me is the right time to go at a guy. It's an eye for an eye. I don't think he's too apologetic about that, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't care if it's clean or not, you get my guy I'm getting you back at some point." Bieksa said

Botterill, not one to back down, came back with her view of the situation:

"Then you get players with potential suspensions or fines and you guys are just fine. Guess what the game is changing and there is other solutions. Maybe it's changing, maybe it can change. It has changed, it doesn't always have to be an eye for an eye."

Safe to say, fans were not impressed with the former three-time Olympic gold medalist's comments; even so far as to ask for her removal from Sportsnet:

It's understandable why some old-school fans would be upset that they can't enact an amount of violence akin to the Hanson Brothers in Slapshot, however, both parties have a point.

Bieksa is correct in that there is a time and place for things to happen, and if something will happen at least it's at the end, and letting your stars get thrown around is not a good way to go about it.

However, to Botterill's point, Xhekaj could have easily just fought Acciari, or laid into him with his massive 6'4 frame and sent a message that way. Some alternatives do involve a modicum of violence without going into malicious intent.

At the end of the day, these are two very different players who played two different games. Botterill is one of Canada's greatest female players and used finesse and grace to establish herself. Bieksa, a booming, heavy-hitting defenseman used his aggressiveness and relentlessness to disrupt opponents for his NHL career.

Neither of them are wrong people; it's an opinion, and both Botterill and Bieksa are entitled to them. Don't bring out the torches and pitchforks, otherwise you need to with every single analyst in the league.

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