Get Him Out

Tom Wilson is the biggest POS in sports (evergreen headline)

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Bruce Bennett

Bill Romanowski, Vontaze Burfict, Mike Tyson, John Scott, Chase Utley, Zaza Pachulia, Grayson Allen. These are just a few of the athletes of yesterday and today that qualify for official “POS” status. Off the field/court/ice, the fraternity expands considerably, but in the theater of play, only a select few assholes get to wear the black badge of honor. On Monday night, Tom Wilson—after years of closed-fist cover letters—finally earned his stripes.

It all began in the second period, when Wilson was spotted shoving Pavel Buchnevic’s face into the ice and then repeatedly punching him in the back of the head Todd Bertuzzi-style during a scrum in front of the Capitals net. Rangers forward Ryan Strome quickly intervened, pulling Wilson off Buchnevic, which of course sparked a melee along the boards. As both teams converged on Wilson, he squirmed away like a slippery little eel, grabbed Rangers star Artemi Panarin by the hair and dashed him against the ice like an egg on the side of a mixing bowl. You can check out the whole sequence here.

For his efforts, Wilson received a double-minor for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct (that’s three penalties in one period for those of you keeping score at home). Unfortunately for Panarin, after serving his two-minute minor he was forced to leave the game through an injury sustained during Wilson’s suplex, at which point the Caps repo man could be seen flexing in the penalty box like the guaranteed-for-life Craftsman tool he his.

As you’ve probably already guessed, hockey fans quickly found the end of their already short Tom Wilson ropes.

OK, so the calls for another mouth to feed in the American prison system are perhaps a bit much, but the rest is crystal clear: Hockey fans don’t want Tom Wilson to be a part of hockey anymore. Hell, most players don’t either. With exception of a select few Capitals sh*t-stirrers, no one wants to see Tom Wilson on the ice going forward, and yet the NHL seems hesitant to do anything semi-permanent about it. In fact, although Panarin was unable to finish the game, ol’ Tommy Boy was back out there for the third period, scoring an empty-net goal because apparently even karma is getting wedgied by this goon.

So for now we wait and see if Bettman will grow a pair or, better yet, a spine and do something about a lone individual who has clearly become a systemic problem. Until that day, we’ll simply have to content ourselves with this.

Feels good, doesn’t it?