Has Mario Kart Officially Taken Over The Role Of Enforcer In The NHL?
By now I think everybody can agree the only reason Sidney Crosby is missing tonight’s game with a concussion in the first place is because hockey has slowly been phasing out the enforcer role in the game. If this were just 15-20 years earlier, Matt Niskanen wouldn’t even think about breathing the same air as Crosby or else he would get his face bashed the heck in by some goon on the Penguins. But since the Pittsburgh lineup is nothing but a bunch of pretty boys, there was nothing preventing that play from happening. Which leads us to today’s comments from Phil “The Thrill” Kessel and Jay Beagle.
It starts with this quote from Beagle on the playoffs in general.
To which Philly Blunt Kessel responded…
Big words from a big man… Now first of all, this is just superb Big J Journalism from whoever asked Phil to respond to that quote without giving him any sort of context to go off of. Sure, Beagle wasn’t talking specifically about the Niskanen hit but why bother throwing that tidbit in there.
“Hey Phil, Jay Beagle said the hit was good and that Sid is just acting like a little cock sucker. Care to respond?”
“Frig off, Jay, ya friggin’ idiot” – Phil Kessel.
Typically this sort of back-and-forth would just stick to name calling, but this is the playoffs and in the playoffs, shit starts to get real. Which is where Jay Beagle then responded with this challenge to Phil.
Marty McSorley is rolling around in his grave right now. Do not fact check me on if Marty McSorley is still alive or not. But you think if anybody cross checked Wayne Gretzky in the face, McSorley would settle it on Moo Moo Farm? No. The psychopath would go out there and slash the very next person he saw in the head with his Sherwood 5030. But it’s 2017 and those days are long gone. Now we have Beagle and Kessel about to hop on Barstool Gametime to take a trip to Rainbow Road. It’s sad that this is what the sport has come to but I guess the only thing we can do now is set up a scouting report on the match.
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For starters, I think Kessel has to go with Wario. It’s just a perfect fit for him. They’re both thicc and beautifully ugly. Also, the cheat in Wario Stadium seems to be a perfect metaphor for Phil Kessel’s existence. You skip the majority of the track the same way Phil Kessel has skipped the majority of the process of being a professional athlete. He just said fuck it to working out and eating right, yet here he is, completely dominating the sport.
Jay Beagle is an incredibly vanilla hockey player. Almost to the point where you forget he’s out there most of the time. There’s really nothing about his game that stands out from anybody else. He’s just there. So Jay Beagle goes with Luigi. Which isn’t a terrible choice. You can quietly make a pretty lengthy career with Luigi. But you put him up against Wario 1v1 and he starts to get exposed. In the mix of everyone else, he probably has a few 3rd place finishes here and there and may even surprise you with a 2nd. But again, that’s racing against everybody. But he loses the physical battle going up head-to-head against Wario and that’s where Kessel wins this match up.
Do I wish these two would get to center ice, drop the mitts and let a few fists fly at each other? Obviously. But that’s just not in the books. So let’s lock these two in a room together. Get them to actually play Mario Kart and hopefully a fight breaks out there instead.