Austria's Philipp Wimmer to face discipline for brutal hit to the head at the World Juniors.

This was a bad one.

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Published 3 years ago
Austria's Philipp Wimmer to face discipline for brutal hit to the head at the World Juniors.

This is one of the uglier hits that you're going to see in international ice hockey competition and that is especially true when you narrow that scope to those doing so in Under 18 tournaments such as this year's World Junior Championship.

On Saturday Austria's Philipp Wimmer delivered what was a devastating hit to the head of American born forward Patrick Moynihan, laying out the American near center ice in the process. Thankfully Moynihan was able to skate away from the hit under his own power, a small miracle when you consider just how much this hit must have rattled his brain, but that does nothing to change the fact that this was a rather ugly hit on the part of the Austrian.

According to National Hockey League insider Bob McKenzie, Wimmer will now face a disciplinary hearing in front of the International Ice Hockey Federation and, given just how bad this hit looks from just about every angle, I suspect that there will be a lengthy suspension that will follow. Given how infrequent international events are on the hockey calendar,a lengthy suspension can effectively end a players career at the international level. Teams will often choose to take players that can play in every game rather than having players serve out suspensions that they picked up in an earlier tournament. 

Now to be clear here I am not suggesting that anyone should feel bad for the Austrian, this was after all a pretty unforgivable hit within the context of the rules, what I am suggesting however is that this one error in judgement in a relatively young career could end up costing him far beyond the scope of this tournament. 

As you will see from the multiple angles that the video shows, Moynihan's head is severely rocked by the impact of the hit and there's very little doubt in my mind that Wimmer was either targeting the head or made absolutely no effort to avoid making contact with Moynihan's head. Additional factors that will be considered when reviewing this hit will be the fact that Moynihan had already gotten rid of the puck prior to contact being initiated by Wimmer, and the fact that this was a blindside hit on the part of Wimmer as well. 

Again I suspect this one could cost Wimmer big time.


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