Stick Swinging Incident
On April 30, 2004, during the 2004 Calder Cup playoffs against the Cleveland Barons, Perezhogin was cross-checked in the face by Garrett Stafford, with both players falling to the ice. While both were trying to get back up, Stafford swung his stick at Perezhogin's head making contact with his helmet. In response, while getting up, Perezhogin turned around and swung his stick in an axe swinging, almost chopping fashion and caught Stafford, who was still getting up, in the face.
The consequent blow knocked Stafford unconscious, and into convulsions. Stafford required twenty stitches, lost some teeth and was diagnosed with a concussion. He was released the next day from Hamilton General Hospital and has since made a full recovery. Perezhogin was suspended for the rest of the playoffs, and in an unprecedented move for the entire following AHL season of 2004–05. Perezhogin was also charged by Hamilton Police Service, and was given a one year probation, ordered to donate $5,000 to charity, and to cover all of Stafford's medical bills.
Perezhogin actually did play pro hockey in 2004–05, but in the Russian Superleague with Avangard. He returned to Hamilton for the 2005–06 season. He was called up to the Montreal Canadiens that season and played 67 games for the Habs. Since 2007, however, he returned to Russia, playing for Salavat Yulaev Ufa of the KHL.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Perezhogin
Famous quotes containing the words stick, swinging and/or incident:
“Our kindred, though they be long ere they be wooed, they are constant being won; they are burrs, I can tell you, they’ll stick where they are thrown.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“All that Swinging Sixties nonsense, we all thought it was passé at the time.”
—David Bailey (b. 1938)
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)