Paul Bissonnette Breaks His Silence on the Incident That Led to His Hospitalization

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Chris Gerics
November 26, 2024 (2:43 PM)

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Former NHL player and Spittin' Chiclets podcast host Paul Bissonnette commented on the altercation that led to him needing hospitalization.

It's not too often that you hear about a former NHL player being assaulted, but when news broke that Paul Bissonnette was hospitalized due to a multi-person assault at a bar in Arizona.

It was a brazen attack on Bissonnette who was trying to intervene and help management before he was punched in the bar before the altercation spilled outside.

Bissonnette was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries and the police have currently booked five of the six assaulters and has now commented on how it went down:

"I go to this place called Houston's... I go there about 3 or 4 times a week. Majority of the time I'm just by myself and I sit at the bar...Eventually I get called up to go to a seat, and I'm putting in an order and all of a sudden you could just hear a commotion at the bar area."

Bissonnette continued, explaining how he ended up in the middle of everything:

So this gentlemen in a lime green golf shirt starts putting his finger in the manager's face and backing him up into the bar and I'm kind of starting to look around and nobody's really getting up to do anything.

So I get up and I go over. And I grab the guy's arm and I say, 'Listen buddy, if you keep harassing and assaulting the staff here we're gonna go outside and we're gonna have problems.

That's when all hell broke loose according to Bissonnette:

"And the moment that left my mouth the guy beside him starts throwing punches. And then next thing you know there was about 4 guys swinging at me. So we're in the middle of the bar area and we are just throwing."

After things spilled out to the street, Bissonnette mentions he was able to throw a shot at the initial agitator, but was quickly taken down:

"We kind of rounded the corner and the bald gentleman who originally threw the first punch makes a bee-line and sprints past all the guys coming at me and I catch him with a nice right and buckled him. I was very, very, VERY, VERY happy about that...

If you get caught on the ground and they start kicking you in the head and if you go unconscious then you don't know what the consequences are.

I ate three kicks, one in the neck, two in the head. Was able to get up and now at this point I have no shoes on... no shirt."

Bissonnette mentioned he made it to a CVS Pharmacy where police ended up coming to arrest the perpetrators.

TMZ released the mugshots of the assailants, and it looks like Bissonnette managed a few good shots.

The former NHL enforcer didn't mince words either about what he plans to do next:

But, I'm so fired up right now that I would be willing to waive every single charge if I could go behind a f****** barn somewhere and go 'em 1 v 1. Every f****** guy.

One after another. I'm going to what I can to ruin these guys' lives. They're f****** a******* and I kind of want my vengeance at this point. Maybe things will change once I calm down."

Safe to say, Bissonnette is hellbent on making sure these guys face justice one way or another.

The main focus here though is that Bissonnette seems to be okay, and that he didn't suffer any serious injuries.

For his NHL career, Bissonnette played 202 games, scoring 7 goals and 22 points while adding 340 PIM as an enforcer with Pittsburgh and Phoenix.