It’s not often that one hockey player refuses to fight another. It’s even less often that a player calls himself a “p*ssy,” while refusing to fight another player.
Yet, that’s exactly what happened Wednesday night in the NHL.
During a Wednesday Night Hockey game between the Nashville Predators and the Colorado Avalanche, tensions mounted between Nashville’s PK Subban and Colorado’s Nikita Zadorov. While the cameras weren’t on the two players, NBC’s NHL analyst Pierre McGuire was standing close enough to them for his mic to pick-up the exchange.
Subban told Zadorov:
“Ya know what? I’m a pussy. You’re right. I wouldn’t fight ya, but you’re a terrible hockey player. No. It’s painful for me to watch. Fuck you’re horrible:”
While it’s generally not advisable for any man to refer to himself as a p*ssy, especially in the ultra-masculine world of the NHL, Subban probably did more damage to Zadorov by saying he’s bad at his job, than he ever could have in a fight.
Zadorov is also nearly half a foot taller than Subban and outweighs him by almost 30 pounds. In this case, retaliating with words was probably the best move for Subban.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn