Wennerholm: Ren idioti | Aftonbladet

Published: Dec 11, 2020 at 8:05 p.m.
Updated: December 12, 2020 at 12:01 a.m.

Joel Lundqvist is suspended for five games and I wonder where the world is going.

Here’s a hockey game where concussions and tackles to the head have been hockey’s own pandemic for several years.

And then a little push to the back takes the same punishment as a flawless head tackle.

Yes, judges are saints and should not be subjected to any form of violence. Until now I am with you.

But violence has a completely different meaning in my world and especially what the world looks like at the moment, than the little push Joel Lundqvist gives linesman Ricard Nilsson during the match against HV71.

“A relatively strong push,” writes the disciplinary committee in its decision.

Personally, I find it hard to even call it a push.

I think more is the trifle, which the judges and the situation room did in the first stage when they chose not to report the situation.

But after what is called a crisis meeting within the judiciary, the incident was reported.

I wish I had attended that “crisis meeting”.

He’s not a bastard

Are there no major crises to focus on in these times?

Who or what was so upset that they wanted to set an example?

Everyone who knows Joel Lundqvist knows that he is not a bully. It can irritate people, is quick on the mouth and hard as flint. But there is no one who loses his mind in the first place.

And when I see the full course of events, I have no problem understanding why he did what he did. He’d had a prolonged row with HV Hill Emil Johansson and was up in laps, adrenaline pumping.

Most people can understand that. I hope.

Then he pushes the linesman to get to the surrounded Emil Johansson and say a few, I guess, well-chosen words.

But closure?

Yes, I can buy a match suspension to mark that the referees should not be subjected to the slightest touch or suffer any emotional expression.

But five matches and more than 20,000 crowns in fines?

So we are in the same division as violent tackles that can end a player’s career.

That’s what I mostly turn against.

So excessively harsh

I can believe that Joel Lundqvist receives his punishment, but not that it is too harsh.

This has already created a debate and I understand why.

On the one hand, those who think Joel got away too cheap in the first place and highlighted other examples from recent history.

I myself received several emails that let me know that Linköping’s defender, Sam Lofqvist, was suspended for something similar, he came in and looked at the situation and said to myself:

– Never.

That the judges on the ice did the right thing to look through their fingers and woo. Sam Lofqvist’s offense was called at least a push and with both hands too

Now linesman Ricard Nilsson decided not to make any major difference to what was on display.

It honors him in that case.

Now Joel Lundqvist can’t play hockey again until Christmas weekend is over, December 28 to be exact.

One of the most important profiles of SHL.

I think it’s sheer idiocy at a time when great profiles are needed more than ever.

No, this feels like a waste of resources for a piece of shit.

He would rather have seen that a meeting had been arranged between Joel and linesman Ricard Nilsson, where they could talk about the situation and give Joel a chance to apologize and stay out of a match as a reminder if the umpires can never move.

It should have stayed there.

Of: Mats Wennerholm

Published: Dec 11, 2020 at 8:05 p.m.

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