Wait a minute, Thornton is now claiming that he didn't know it was Orpik that he took down???
After skating halfway down the ice, wading into the scrum and then taking two shots while looking right at him, he didn't know who he was???
What a joke. And an even bigger joke is the Bruins fans who still defend him and put the onus on Orpik for not fighting after a clean hit...
I agree that I think Thornton's actions came down from the top. EVERYONE in Boston was screaming that the Bruins didn't do anything to Patches in the game just before the one against the Pens. They were going crazy about the Habs taking liberties on their players and them doing nothing about it (something Pens fans are used to...LOL) and by God they wanted something done.
So along comes the game against the Pens, Orpik steps up on Eriksson to set the tone, and the Bruins feel that they needed to do SOMETHING to show that they meant business. So they claim that they were fed up with their players getting hit and injured, they tried to get Orpik to "man up" and "answer the bell" and he didn't. Then Neal hit Marchand in the head with his knee and they claim that was the last straw. Thornton just went crazy because he was tired of his players getting cheapshotted, so he just grabbed the first Penguin he saw and decided to dish out some Beantown justice...
On a side note though, I am getting tired of the Pens refusing to stick up for shots on their star players. I am not at all suggesting anything like what Thornton did, but if you have noticed, just in the last week alone, 3 Pens were hit low with hip checks and low bridges. Kobasew, Neal, and Crosby. Neal had to take matters into his own hands to stick up for himself... Where are the guys like Bortuzzo in situations like that? Why are all of his fights some staged garbage against the other team's heavyweight? Are they being told to not engage anybody because of their current injury situation? While I have seen many hipchecks and lowbridges over the years, it is kind of a rarity now but now I have just seen 3 thrown on the Pens in the last week...