Keith Ballard - Most Confused Man in Sports

The Florida Panthers are finally relevant in the sports world, but it's for all the wrong reasons. Dubbed by ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose as one of the dumbest things he's ever seen in the game of hockey, Keith Ballard's physical expression of frustration after allowing a goal took it's toll on his goaltender, Tomas Vokoun. After Atlanta Thrashers forward Ilya Kovalchuk potted a breakaway goal to give his team a 2-0 lead, Ballard attempted to do what we've seen countless players do in the past by smashing his stick on the crossbar. Problem is, he failed horribly and ended up injuring his goalie. The video shows Ballard giving a Prince Fielder effort with his swing which totally missed the post and drilled Vokoun in the head, sending him to the hospital.

Why do I say he's confused? Easy; he clearly forgot who he plays for and who he was for a moment and became a poor man's Marty McSorely. Ballard, who is hero to myself and numerous other hockey fans for putting a well deserved beatdown on resident NHL crybaby Sidney Crosby, will now forever live as the man who samurai chopped his own goaltender. He doesn't have a reputation as a dirty player and is one of the better two way defensemen in the NHL, so to see him do this is rather troubling. What is possibly even more troubling is how many unnecessarily dirty plays and devastating injuries have occurred this season.

While Ballard was leveling his teammate, Alex Ovechkin was adding to his ejection total by laying a knee-on-knee hit on Carolina's Tim Gleason. Those two incidents are coming on the heels of George Laraque kneeing Nikalas Kronwall to injured reserve for 8 weeks, Ovechkin earning an ejection for boarding Buffalo's Patrick Kaleta (which really wasn't in my mind, but my view doesn't hold water against the NHL's), and Kaleta getting ejected in kind for boarding Jared Ross in Philadelphia. For all the talk of eliminating fighting from the game for fear of injury, it would appear that the NHL would be better served to pay attention to the rash of easily preventable injuries by severely punishing players who are involved in incidents like the above plays. That includes Ovechkin; stars should get no preferential treatment (even though they obviously do. see - Evgeni Malkin's instigator penalty in the Stanley Cup last season)

Give Keith Ballard credit for one thing though, he doesn't leave things half done. Instead of checking on his fallen goalie, he finished what he started by eventually destroying his stick on the goal post. Priorities; some people have them, some people don't.