Watch: Hockey Player Banned by His Own Team After Wild MMA Move
One of the greatest scenes in sports movie history comes in the film “Slap Shot,” when the goonish Hanson Brothers are first unleashed by their coach, Reg Dunlop (played by Paul Newman).
A little bit of that dirty Hanson Brothers spirit is still alive and well in the sport of hockey in the person of Holden Anderson.
Anderson, of Amiens in the top division of the French league, got into a scuffle with Julien Desrosiers of Bordeaux.
After what Anderson did next, someone should get Desrosiers a nice Bordeaux to drink to drown his sorrows.
Anderson swung forward to get a little bit of leverage, and then — sweep the leg, Johnny.
Hockey Player Suspended by Own Team for Brutal MMA Move ?https://t.co/CDUDvFa6pH pic.twitter.com/ckD5koRVmI
— Sports Talk (@OnIySportz) March 8, 2019
The trip move flipped Desrosiers over, and he landed hard on his head. That knocked him clean out and also caused an acromioclavicular sprain, according to Yahoo Sports, which in layman’s terms means that the ligaments that keep the shoulder blade in place got stretched further than nature ever intended them to go.
Needless to say, the French Ice Hockey Federation is very likely to issue a suspension, since Desrosiers is expected to miss the remainder of the playoffs with the injury.
Sixth-seed Bordeaux holds a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven quarterfinals in Ligue Magnus — Desrosiers has scored one goal in five games.
Amiens, meanwhile, isn’t waiting for the league to mete out punishment to Anderson; the team has indefinitely suspended its own player for his unsporting behavior in the run of play.
A statement from Amiens confirmed the suspension.
Translated from the French by TSN, it said, “The Gothic club of Amiens announced on its website to have made the decision to suspend Holden Anderson pending the decision of the Commission of Infringements of the Rules of the Game.”
The two teams have put on a thriller of a playoff series, with all five games decided by just one goal and two of them — one win for each team — going to overtime.
You can see from another angle how the incident caused both benches to clear, but a large-scale brawl was thankfully averted.
Va falloir m’expliquer ce geste ???♂️ #SLMHockey #liguemagnus #scandaleux pic.twitter.com/0Jshx281ed
— Sebastian Ylönen (@SebYlonen) March 6, 2019
The text roughly translates as “it fails me to explain this gesture,” and the hashtag “#scandaleux” means exactly what it looks like it means in English.
This incident happened in Game 4 of the series, a 4-3 Amiens win that tied the series at two games apiece before Bordeaux won Game 5.
Desrosiers, despite having just one goal in the playoffs, is one of the all-time leading scorers in the annals of French hockey, although he has never seen action in or around the NHL.
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