NHLVideoWeird But True

Hockey Player Hits Coach In Face With Stick, Coach Apparently Some Type Of Robot Or Something

Rarely have we seen six seconds of footage packed with more weirdness than those below. The clip involves KHL star Alexander Radulov of Salavat Yulayev (and formerly of the Nashville Predators) hitting Ilari Näckel, his team’s goalie coach, with his hockey stick. And we mean “hit.” This was not a “grazing” situation. Check it out for yourself:

Now, if it had just been, say, Radulov’s stick hitting Näckel inadvertently, this already would have been a clip worth watching. But this has so much more. For one, the hit did not look accidental. Radulov glanced behind him, then whacked his stick back there seemingly as hard as he could, catching the poor coach pretty hard. Näckel, though, took it remarkably well, flinching (obviously) but doing nothing beyond that, and getting right back to what he was doing.

What really takes it up to the next level, though, is what Radulov does after the stick-whacking: he makes a hand gesture, as if to say, “My bad.” And if that’s what he’s doing…what?! he just swung his stick so hard that it clearly wasn’t accidental, and he even looked behind him before he did it, making it appear even more deliberate!

It’s either that, or he was derisively signaling, “Hey,” as if his stick-whack was his way of seeing if Näckel was alive back there. And he has had issues with coaches…you know what? Screw it. Our head’s going to hurt if we think about this any more. Just take the weirdness and embrace it. (UPDATE: a commenter points out another possibility that makes more sense: Radulov was responding to annoying fans just behind the glass. Even then, though, didn’t he have to realize there was a coach right there?)

[Puck Daddy]