Andrew Shaw Lost His Mind Last Night, Gave The Refs The Middle Finger And Called A Ref A "Faggot"

Well the other story out there besides the Hawks being in a 3-1 hole heading to St. Louis is this, Andrew Shaw losing his mind last night, taking a dumb penalty in the crucial waning moments of the game, giving the refs the middle finger and calling one of them a faggot for the whole world to see. Just about the dumbest sequence a player has had in a long long time. First the penalty. Here’s the deal with Andrew Shaw, you need a guy like him on your hockey team, I know the stat geeks will say otherwise but you need a guy who can get dirty, be a pest, and fill that sparkplug type of role. And Andrew Shaw is very good at it, he’s been part of Cup winning teams in that role, no one should deny what he has done for the Blackhawks. The problem with Shaw and the role he plays is when that sparkplug energy teeters on the brink of chaos and winds up in the “really stupid penalty” category. Refs usually don’t call that type of penalty on Shaw last night that late in the game but that’s not the point, 2 minutes left in a 1 goal game you can’t give the refs even the opportunity to think about blowing their whistle. This wasn’t the first time Shaw took a dumb penalty and it won’t be the last (who knows if it will be in a Hawks sweater next year). That’s how he plays, sometimes it helps you and sometimes it hurts you, last night it hurt us in a big big way and he deserves criticism.

As for the slur. Also incredibly stupid and has no place in the game. No one should defend it any way. Here’s how this will go though. PC twitter will write think pieces about it, they will talk down to the regular people like we’re morons and mouthbreathers and then the same 100 followers in their twitter clique will say “This is so important, great piece”. Here’s the reality. Everyone with a brain knows how dumb and wrong that was by Andrew Shaw. There is no defending calling a ref a faggot and I think 99.9% of us see that. Don’t say “it was the heat of the moment”. Shaw lost his composure and he said something he shouldn’t have in a game or in regular life, rational people should never defend it just like the crazies shouldn’t get to say Andrew Shaw is the worse person in the world because of this. I don’t know if the NHL will suspend him for that, they probably will take their time and hope the Hawks get eliminated so they can do it for next season, but if they do suspend him I have no problem with that. The “kick Shaw out of the NHL” people are the worst, but most of us can hold two thoughts in our head and say “Yes Andrew Shaw should be responsible for calling someone a Faggot and no that does not inherently make him an awful person and a lost cause”. Maybe I’m giving the world too much credit though, we will see.

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Oh and one final one. Shaw in the postgame scrum. This one I’m more ok with. Obviously the Blues are fucking with Shaw because they know they’ll get a rise out of him. Unfortunately his failure to realize that some times is why we’re even having this discussion. But at some point you have to stand up for yourself. And after this.

And someone spearing you in the nuts.

I’m not going to get upset when you lose it a little bit after the game. Shaw has a right to defend himself in this case. This sequence I’m ok with, everything else Shaw did was stupid and hurt the Blackhawks.