We don't often bring you coverage of events in the Slovak Extraliga or Slovak Tipos Extraliga, but there was an incident this week that was simply too spectacular to overlook.
The scene you're about to see is from a matchup that was between HK Dukla Michalovce and HC Slovan Bratislava, and yes the matchup was held this week in spite of the ongoing fears surround the current global pandemic. Defenseman Patrik Maier of Slovan Bratislava however probably now wishes that the games had been cancelled for one reason or another. That is because Maier made the big mistake of challenging opposing defenseman Mark Louis, who is almost 10 years his senior, to drop the gloves.
Louis was more than willing to take on the challenge and in fact not only did he willing accept the challenge he put Maier to sleep in a way that you just don't often see on a hockey rink. This was a one hit knockout in the truest sense of the word, and I genuinely do believe that, based on his body language, Maier was completely out of it before he ever hit the ice.
Now there is a clear mitigating factor here that I would be remiss not to mention and that is the work of the linesman that clearly puts both men in greater danger. The linesman, who appeared to be focused on breaking up the antics going on after the whistle, stepped in between the two combatants and actually went to grab Louis who quickly pushed him out of the way before delivering the fight ending blow.This no doubt caught Maier by surprise and almost certainly played a role in him eating the shot the way he did, but Louis himself would have been in danger if he had allowed the linesman to grab him while Maier was charging at him ready to deliver a blow of his own.
We have all seen officials become quicker and quicker to step in and stop these kinds of events from transpiring on the ice in the modern era of professional hockey, and unfortunately I think it is only a matter of time before we see a player or an official get seriously hurt in one of these incidents. I sincerely wish that the officials, once players have engaged in this manner, would simply step back instead of putting themselves at risk.
Here is the spectacular video of the incident.
