Gizmodo What Happened to Google Fiber? | Deadspin Report: Darrelle Revis Involved In Street Brawl | The Slot I Don’t Even Know What to Say About Donald Trump’s Press Conference | The Root White Folks Can’t Just Come to the Cookout Because They Perform Blackness |
Hot on the heels of retailers who have halted sales of Ivanka Trump's clothing line in protest against Trump (and free marketing buzz), the tech "resistance" against Trump got its lead from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckeberg who on Thursday posted a lengthy note "rebuking isolationist “America First” sentiment, and touting the merits of globalization and a “global community” working for innovation and progress."
In short, the CEO of the "social network", whose business model is predicated upon uninhibited globalization allowing advertisers to reach into every corner of the world with 3 second video clips, is calling for a global government. Not all that surprising.
As the Daily Beast, which first reported about Zuckerberg's post, summarizes:
Discouraged by the underlying suspicion of foreign entities, as seen during the 2016 election and the rise of President Trump, Zuckerberg wrote that he wants to refocus Facebook on helping people come together across borders.
“We have to build a global community that works for everyone. I really don’t have much doubt that this is the right direction to go in the long term.” Part of his goal, he wrote, is to make Facebook a global community that is supportive, safe, informed, civically engaged, and inclusive.
Some more excerpts from Zuckerberg's sermon for globalization:
On our journey to connect the world, we often discuss products we're building and updates on our business. Today I want to focus on the most important question of all: are we building the world we all want?
History is the story of how we've learned to come together in ever greater numbers -- from tribes to cities to nations. At each step, we built social infrastructure like communities, media and governments to empower us to achieve things we couldn't on our own.
Today we are close to taking our next step. Our greatest opportunities are now global -- like spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, and accelerating science. Our greatest challenges also need global responses -- like ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics. Progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community.
This is especially important right now. Facebook stands for bringing us closer together and building a global community. When we began, this idea was not controversial. Every year, the world got more connected and this was seen as a positive trend. Yet now, across the world there are people left behind by globalization, and movements for withdrawing from global connection. There are questions about whether we can make a global community that works for everyone, and whether the path ahead is to connect more or reverse course.
This is a time when many of us around the world are reflecting on how we can have the most positive impact. I am reminded of my favorite saying about technology: "We always overestimate what we can do in two years, and we underestimate what we can do in ten years." We may not have the power to create the world we want immediately, but we can all start working on the long term today. In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us.
There are many of us who stand for bringing people together and connecting the world. I hope we have the focus to take the long view and build the new social infrastructure to create the world we want for generations to come.
With the seal of criticism now official broken, we anticipate more tech CEOs will soon join the "resistance" with even louder, more dramatic statements of opposition to Trump's policies.
The low-confidence cynic in me wants to tell you that a seven figure exit isn’t really that much. I have friends who have had eight figure exits, and I’m met multiple people who have had 10 figure exits. This is my experience as a guy who started a business with $10k in personal credit card debt and $200 in the bank, and accidentally ended up a millionaire.
Truth #1 — it’s fucking hard to get there
The house has a significant advantage on this bet. According to Forbes, 8 out of 10 businesses fail within the first 18 months. In his amazing book “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits,” Verne Harnish points out that of all businesses in the United States, only 4% make it to $1M in annual revenue. Only 0.4% of all businesses make it to $10M in annual revenue. We made it almost halfway through.
It is an impossibly hard venture, however an estimated 543,000 new businesses open every single month. 75% of them will never have a single employee. When I sold my startup, we had 100 people working with us. I’m glad we got the stats out of the way. Now I can speak from the heart.
Truth #2 — money changed me for the worst
I love people — I love hanging out with them and I love making them happy. I love being around good people and the times I’ve truly had non-blood family have been some of the happiest of my life.
Unfortunately, I no longer have very many friends. I worked so hard in my 20s and early 30s that I let my closest relationships lapse in the name of making money. It’s tough to keep friends around when you’re either working, or work is on your mind 24/7.
Of the small amount of friends that I’ve maintained, there are two distinct groups — those that met me when I didn’t have much money, and those who met me when I had money.
The friends that I’ve maintained all along (and many of them are former employees) understand me. They understand my insatiable drive and the effort that it took to build a business and then sell it. They understand that every action and everything I do is with the greater good in mind — that’s what made me a successful leader.
The friends that I have made in the last few years do not understand (and that’s 100% my fault). They see a spoiled, tone-deaf asshole who they can’t identify with. Success is intimidating to others. When you roll up to someone’s house in a Tesla, how can they help but assume that you’re just a judgmental asshole?
Things like $300 pairs of jeans, $450 pairs of boots, concrete countertops in your house, or trips to New Zealand no longer bother me. That’s great and all, however when someone with money talks about these things to someone who is struggling to pay rent, you come across as a tone deaf asshole.
I continually hurt those that I love most with my actions and words. Money isn’t the root cause of this, but the fact that I have money and do not have to worry about paying rent or getting my car fixed, puts me in a position in which I have a very hard time identifying with those that do. I’m working on it, but it’s fucking hard. And I continually hurt those around me — just by being myself-and it’s beyond heartbreaking.
Somewhere along the way, money truly changed me for the worst. I hope my experience writing this helps other successful entrepreneurs realize that family and friendships are what really matters in life. Not an ever growing bank account.
Truth #3 — the skills that make you a good leader DO NOT transfer to social settings
When you’re a leader and you’re constantly learning from others, you start doing things like hiring to your weaknesses while focusing on your strengths. You get really good at a specific skill set — in my case, this is hiring and retaining great employees, visioning, strategic planning, and company culture development. That’s is. I’m not overly good at anything else.
What I ran my business, these specific skills were very valuable. If I were to step into another CEO role, I would use these same skills to (hopefully) be successful in that position.
Here are several real life examples as to how trying to use this skill set in the real world backfired and I ended up looking like a total asshole (though I meant nothing but the best in each situation).
In addition, these specific skills are all “soft” skills. I also play the violin. You either play the violin, or you don’t. When it comes to hiring an treating people right, there are many grey areas. I’ve spent a significant amount of time and money developing my leadership qualities, however many people in my life do not understand that these skills are very learned.
Anyone can start a business. Not anyone can hire and retain employees, set clear vision, and execute on that vision. It’s a learned skill that takes ridiculous amounts of practice. Just like playing the violin.
Truth #4 — the same charismatic attitude that makes you a good leader also makes you an asshole
Yesterday, I got told by someone I really care about that I looked at her “like a little girl” when we were having a conversation. The day before that, one of my very closest friends and someone who I love like family told me that she didn’t feel her opinion mattered around me because she hadn’t “made a million dollars.”
The horrible truth to being a formerly successful leader is that many things you say in a social setting will be analyzed in ways that you don’t intend. I’m a good listener overall (not great, but pretty good), and the fact that my actions were making these very respected and talented individuals feel worthless was not okay.
Listening is an art. Talking over someone because you’re an expert in an area and they are not is not okay.
Truth #5 — life post-exit is not all happy times
A successful business with great employees gives you a purpose. You have a responsibility to those who choose to spend their lives working with you. Your efforts are literally supporting entire families and when there is a mutual appreciation, not only is it extremely rewarding, but everything else tends to fall into place.
Now that I don’t have a business, I used this as an opportunity to jump into playing music full time. I joined a band and attempted to use the same skill set that I’ve spent my entire adult life refining. And it did nothing but cause pain.
When you have no purpose, life is fucking empty. I have an amazing wife and a newborn who I adore with all my heart, but I’m not cut out to be a stay at home parent.
To my fellow entrepreneurs out there — I know you’re constantly burned out. I know that you’re dealing with the exact same shit after 10 years that you dealt with on day 1. I know it’s incredibly lonely at the top. It sucks and it’s challenging.
However, please learn from my mistakes — try to enjoy the moment. Write the “story” of your business and your life. Keep your friends insanely close. Do whatever you need to do to prioritize a work-life balance (or as Zappos says, a “work-life integration”). REALLY consider that buy out offer and if you will be truly happy after the fact. Material things do not make people happy, at all.
The sad reality is that you can accomplish all of your goals and become a true expert while building incredible teams of employees and friends along the way.
But the rest of the world doesn’t give a fuck about you or your experience.
Share.
Storage space, menu music, and more reportedly revealed.
A new YouTube video showcases more of the Nintendo Switch's user interface, including its menus, the process for creating a new system user, and more.
A video uploaded by hiphoptherobot posted to NeoGAF apparently reveals the Switch from its start-up out of the box through the process of creating an account on the system and scanning through the system's settings.
Among the notable aspects of the video is the system's revealed internal storage space, which is listed as only 25.9 GB. Nintendo has previously said the system will have 32 GB of internal memory — though Nintendo has said the Switch will support up to 2TB Micro SDXC cards — so this video could be an indication of the amount of space the operating system takes up in the system.
The video also shows the process for creating a user on the system, including creating a name and selecting an icon — the system here features a set of Nintendo-related images, from characters like Bowser to items Link's Hylian Shield and Master Sword.
The video also shows that the Switch tablet screen can be customized with themes, though only "Basic White" and "Basic Black" options are available at the moment.
The video also runs through the various icons previously seen in the brief previous glimpses of the Switch's OS. The News icon brings players to a tiled page that offers information about various aspects of the system, the Nintendo eShop, the Albums page where screenshots will be stored, a Controllers tab for connecting new Joy-Cons and checking battery life, and a System Settings icon. The previously mentioned themes and storage information are found in this last tab, as are options for a sleep mode, screen lock, Mii and Amiibo options, and setting for when the Switch is connected to a TV.
According to hiphoptherobot, a retailer sent the preordered Switch early, thoughhiphoptherobot declined to say what outlet and to where the system was shipped.
"...It isn't like I grabbed it off the back of a truck or anything, I just happened to get lucky because unnamed store decided to ship early for whatever reason," hiphoptherobot wrote.
Got feedback on our player?
We want to hear it.IGN has reached out to Nintendo for comment on the video and will update this story should they respond.
A set of design documents that appeared on Reddit also seemingly leak the Switch's internal specifications and more.
Got feedback on our player?
We want to hear it.The Switch officially launches on March 3, and among its launch lineup is The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, which will receive a season pass, Nintendo recently revealed. Nintendo also indicated the ability for up to 10 Switches to be connected locally recently, while also announcing a Splatoon 2 demo coming next month.
Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
No matter how secure your password is—even if you have a long, complex one created by a password manager—it is still a single point of failure. An attacker could crack it, steal it, or change it.
Investment Thesis
I have been bullish on Intrepid Potash (NYSE:IPI) for a while now, and although the stock is up 100% since I wrote about it 3 and half months ago, I still think there is at least 35% upside potential. Although when I first wrote about Intrepid I concluded that at that price of roughly $1.10 it was a "no-brainer investment", at what it currently trades, roughly $2.35, the same can not be said. However, I still think it has significant upside for investors before the earnings come out in a few weeks.
Overview
Intrepid Potash is the only U.S. producer of muriate of potash and supplied approximately 9% of the country's annual consumption in 2015. Intrepid Potash also competes with Mosaic (NYSE:MOS) to sell a premium type of fertilizer. Whereas Intrepid Potash sells Trio (sulfate of potash magnesia), Mosaic bundles several different crop nutrients in each granule of Microessentials. However, the concept is the same, trying to sell a fertilizer product that has better margins.
Financials
Please have a quick look at the table below.
Source: morningstar.com; author's calculations
I will be the first to point out that over the past 5 years, Intrepid has had negative 10% returns on equity and has been burning up lots of cash. But this needs to be taken in context. Over the past 5 years, the price of potash has been falling at quite a clip (see below).
Potassium Chloride (Muriate of Potash) Spot Price data by YCharts
However, only a few weeks ago both Mosaic and Potash Corp. (NYSE:POT) released quarterly earnings and both competitors had similar messages.
We are optimistic about 2017. And we are definitely feeling better now than we were at this point last year. There is no question that business conditions are improving
- Mosaic 2016 Q4
...we continue to expect strong global demand in 2017. And, importantly, we have seen meaningful reductions in global capacity and production in both potash and phosphates
- Mosaic 2016 Q4
we believe this is the first year in more than a decade where potash industry has had a drawdown in global inventory at both the producer and distributor levels.
- Potash Corp. 2016 Q4
Insider Ownership
In my previous article, I already touched on the fact that CEO Robert Jornayvaz had been purchasing large quantities of Intrepid Potash stock in the open market. He spent roughly $2.3M in the stock from $7.29 all the way down to $0.84 and back to $1.29. Robert Jornayvaz is still very much underwater in these series of investments, having bought the majority of the stock at prices above $3 and the current stock trades for less $2.50. However, I believe that there is no one that would know the fate of Intrepid Potash better than him. Also, I should mention that:
Mr. Jornayvaz's performance stock units (which represented all of his targeted total direct compensation for 2015 other than a $100,000 salary) was reduced to zero based on our performance
Source: proxy statement 2016
Mr. Jornayvaz's 2014 salary was reduced by 50% as compared to 2013 (from $100,000 to $50,000)
Source: proxy statement 2015
So here is the CEO of the company who has not been adequately compensated for several years and somehow managed to sum up the courage to buy up $2.3M of stock in his own company in the open market. I'm willing to bet that this is a very calculated move on Mr. Jornayvaz's behalf. Especially when one considers that Mr. Jornayvaz took the company to IPO at the height of the previous potash cycle and will have cashed in at a very healthy price.
Relative Valuation
Below I compare Intrepid Potash with its closest competitors.
Source: my calculations
The table above illustrates two facts. The first is that these 3 competitors are trading at a discount to their respective 5-year averages, which is indicative of the whole industry being out of favor. The second fact is that Intrepid Potash is disproportionately cheaper than what it has been and to its competitors.
Conclusion
Needless to say, potash is highly cyclical and there are significant dangers in investing in a pure-play commodity company. There are a lot of factors that are outside of management's control, least of all potash pricing and farmer's demand for potash versus competitors' oversupply that has taken place in the past, from 2012-2015.
However, I believe that has already been more than accounted for at the current share price, and I can see this mispricing closing and a 35% upside potential to the current share price.
Thank you so much for reading my article. If you have enjoyed reading this article, please click "Follow" to get more articles of mine in real time.
Disclosure: I am/we are long IPI.
I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
He's optimistic about the country, about the future and about you. No matter where things are right now, he knows in the long run they're getting better. You doubt it? Don't bet against it; he's made billions investing in that belief. The great thing about Warren's optimism is you can't hear him share a story, tell a joke or say hello without picking up some of his optimism yourself.
That's why it feels so good to be around him.
Some people might say, "I'd be optimistic, too, if I'd had his success." But we think that has it backward. Warren's success didn't create his optimism; his optimism led to his success. Because optimism isn't a belief that things will automatically get better; it's a conviction that we can make things better.
Ten years ago, that optimism prompted Warren
to give the bulk of his fortune to our foundationto help fight inequity in the world. It was (and remains) the single biggest gift anybody ever gave anyone for anything, but Warren was very modest about it. He didn't give us any instructions. He just said, "I'm good at making money, not giving it away. That part's up to you."
We knew, though, that just because he's not making the decisions doesn't mean he's not watching.
Last year,
marking the 10th anniversary of his gift, he suggested we write a report on the foundation's work that answers the question: What have we accomplished so far, and what do we hope to do in the future? We thought it was a good idea, and so for this year's annual letter, we decided to share with everyone our answer to Warren.
a lot of good news, like the fact that the world is on the verge of eradicating polio forever. There's also some disappointing news, including how long it's taking to develop new vaccines for some of the deadliest diseases. But mostly the letter is an argument for optimism. In it, we offer a lot of evidence that it's possible to make things better -- a lot better -- and that we're gaining even in areas where people may have lost hope.
We're excited to share two of the letter's highlights with you -- and in Warren's spirit of fun competition, we're putting them in a quiz.
Which of the following is true: Over the past 25 years worldwide, extreme poverty (a) increased by 25% (b) stayed the same (c) decreased by 25%?
The answer is "none of the above." Over the last 25 years,
extreme poverty has been cut in half. If you didn't get that right, don't worry. Only 1% of people surveyed got it right; everyone else underestimated the progress.
Which of the following is true: Over the last 25 years worldwide, the number of deaths annually of children under 5 (a) increased by 25%; (b) stayed the same; (c) decreased by 25%?
You're probably too shrewd to fall for the same trick twice, so you're likely guessing "none of the above." You're right. Over the last 25 years, the
number of childhood deaths annuallyhas been cut in half as well.
Because of the spread of vaccines, better nutrition, more breastfeeding and access to contraceptives, in every year since 1990,
fewer children died than in the previous year. If we could show you only one number that proves how life has changed for the poorest, it would be 122 million, the number of children's lives saved since 1990
when you add up the gains. These are children who would have died if mortality rates had stayed where they were in 1990.
The best news is that these trends of saving lives and reducing poverty are connected and yield benefits for children, their parents and whole nations. Reducing childhood mortality is
the heart of the work for us. When you chart them all, virtually all advances in society — nutrition, education, access to contraceptives, gender equity, economic growth — show up as gains in the childhood mortality chart, and every gain in this chart shows up in gains for society.
When parents are confident their children will survive — and they have access to contraceptives so they can time and space their pregnancies to improve outcomes for mothers and babies — parents can choose how many children to have. The children are healthier, they're better nourished, their mental capacities are higher, and parents have more time and money to spend on each child's health and schooling. That's how families and entire countries get out of poverty.
These are just two highlights from our letter to Warren; we hope you go to
www.gatesletter.comand find more. Maybe a little bit of Warren will rub off on you, and you'll see that optimism is not just positive thinking -- but the right outlook on how you, too, can transform the world. Together, over time, we
canmake things better.
Welcome to Hyrule! Here's your branded shirt.
Nintendo has announced an "Expansion Pass" for Breath of the Wild, offering the first ever DLC in a main series Legend of Zelda game.
Available from March 3 for $19.99 USD / £17.99 (Australian price unknown at time of writing), the Expansion Pass will offer two extra content packs, to be released later in 2017, neither of which can be purchased individually. The details of each are:
Pack 1 - Summer 2017
Pack 2 - Holiday 2017
Purchasing the Expansion Pass will also immediately unlock three extra treasure chests in the game's Great Plateau location. Two will contain "useful items" while, more unusually, the third will include a "a shirt with a Nintendo Switch logo which Link can wear during his adventure".
Series producer Eiji Aonuma has also created a video to explain the Expansion Pass (above), in which he explains that the aim is to offer more for those who have finished the main game to play well after release.
Breath of the Wild will be released for Wii U and Nintendo Switch on March 3, along with the Switch console itself.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and that logo shirt decision is... a bit Ubisoft-y? Follow him on Twitter.
Hockey is a sport known for being fast-paced and fiercely competitive. Most of all, some people see hockey as good for one thing: violence. Fighting is the blood that flows through hockey’s veins, but a lot has changed since the Rock’em Sock ’em, no-helmet era. Player safety continues to become more important as the league changes and develops. Still, no amount of fines or suspensions could stop these five players from dishing out some of the most infamous and dirty plays of all time.
It’s not common to see blatantly malicious on-ice behavior in the NHL — at least, not to the extent of Chris Simon.
Simon was never the finest specimen of the league, being infamous for landing eight suspensions over the span of his 16-year career. The two most notable of these were both in 2007, both record-breaking at the time, and both due to a deliberate intent to injure another player.
His first that season was a 20-game suspension after a vicious slash to the face of Ryan Hollweg as a member of the Islanders. It took a mere 27 games for him to receive his second and longer suspension from the league, and this offense was exponentially worse than the last.
During a stoppage in play on Dec. 15, 2007, a scrum began to form around Isles forward Tim Jackman and Penguins forward Jarkko Ruutu. As the tension dissolved, Simon kicked Ruutu’s feet out from underneath him, stomping on his ankle with the blade of his skate in a violent exhibition of intent to injure. Ruutu was luckily not injured on the play and would finish the game on the Pittsburgh bench, while Simon was assessed a major penalty and sent off the ice immediately.
“We dug out the clips on the things he has done in the past and looked at them and think we have been fairly kind in assessing a low number of games to a couple of those incidents. It just hasn’t been a deterrent. So what is a deterrent?” said Colin Campbell, former Director of Hockey Operations, to the New York Times in Dec. 2007.
“When a player repeatedly evidences the lack of ability to control his actions and conducts himself in total disregard of the rules, as well as the health and safety of other players on the ice, each subsequent incident is deserving of enhanced scrutiny and more severe discipline,” Campbell continued.
“I never met Ruutu in life outside of hockey. I am sure he is a good guy. We had a lot of run-ins on the ice, when I played for Calgary, and he was at Vancouver. And he always did everything underhandedly. So we had a decent feud going. But he is not a fighter, so I could never fight him. … By the way, when I see Ruutu playing in international games, surprisingly, it turns out he can score and pass.”
After the incident, Simon left the Islanders to get counseling while serving his 30-game ban. He played only one more game in an Islanders jersey before being traded to the Minnesota Wild. Simon retired at season’s end, moving on to play in the KHL until 2013.
The “repugnant and totally unacceptable” behavior from Simon deserves a spot on this list, not for its aftershocks and impact but for its purely brutal nature.
Dale Hunter was responsible for a great deal of frustration back in his playing days. He was a fan favorite wherever he went, but was among the most hated NHL players in every other city. Not only did Hunter have a knack for scoring, but he’d beat you up right after he scored the game-winning goal; Hunter is the only player in NHL history to have tallied over 1,000 points as well as 3,000 penalty minutes over his career.
“When we traded Dale Hunter [to the Washington Capitals in 1987], we lost our soul,” said the former president of the Quebec Nordiques, Marcel Aubut, to Sports Illustrated in 1995.
In fact, many people, including former teammates, say that it was this infamous hit that cost him a spot in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The rivalry between the Islanders and the Capitals during the 1993 Stanley Cup Playoffs was intense. It was Game 6 of the first round, and it was a must-win if the Capitals wanted to stay alive. The Islanders got out to a commanding lead, which was cushioned by Pierre Turgeon with time dwindling down.
Dale Hunter received a pass behind the net, and in an attempt to move the play up ice, he gave it away to Turgeon. Turgeon easily scored and skated away in celebration, unaware of the danger that was lurking behind him. Hunter followed Turgeon to the far side boards, crushing him with a hit as his back was turned. The hit blindsided an unsuspecting Turgeon, and separated his shoulder causing him to miss most of the Islanders’ playoff run.
“As I replay it in my mind, I still cringe seeing Pierre going to me,” Islanders play-by-play man Ken McDonald recalled to the Washington Post. “I saw Dale coming. I knew that Pierre’s head was turned, he had no idea, couldn’t hear anything, the crowd was going crazy of course. You could just feel … this isn’t going to be nice, this isn’t going to be something you want to see.”
McDonald went on to describe the hit as “not only a dark moment for the Capitals, a dark moment for the game.”
Pierre Turgeon won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy at the end of the 1993 season for his resilience following the injury. He finished his career with a total of 1,327 points in 1,294 games played.
Despite the controversy, Hunter’s #32 was retired by the Washington Capitals in 2000. As an added bonus, he was given the penalty box from the Capital Centre, where the Capitals played their home games. Nowadays, Hunter is behind the bench for the London Knights of the OHL. He coached them to a Memorial Cup victory in 2016.
GAME DAY!
Your Knights take on the Saginaw Spirit. Tonight is head coach Dale Hunter’s 1000th game! Congrats Dale!
Puck drops at 7:05pm. http://pic.twitter.com/4i5zCqswgh
— London Knights (@GoLondonKnights) January 14, 2017
(Matt Kartozian/US PRESSWIRE)
At the time of this incident, Raffi Torres had already earned his reputation around the NHL. Though not considered a repeat offender under the CBA, Torres had been suspended four times, fined three, and warned twice by the NHL for illegal checks, most notably the hit that concussed Marian Hossa in the 2012 playoffs.
Still, this hit from 2015 ranks among the dirtiest on Torres’s laundry list of offenses, both objectively and subjectively; it resulted in the NHL’s third-longest suspension of all time at 41 games.
Playing for the Sharks in a preseason matchup, Torres landed a vicious check on Anaheim Ducks’ Jakob Silfverberg. Torres was far from the play at the time and took several long strides leading up to contact. Silfverberg’s head was the principal point of contact, evident by Torres leaving the ice and raising his shoulder in order to initiate the check. To top it all of, this came 0.8 seconds after Silfverberg had lost possession. This is “well past the length of time allowable for legally finishing a check,” as explained by the NHLDPS.
Even former teammates came out to denounce Torres’ behavior.
“Same player every year,” Ryan Kesler, Torres’ teammate in Vancouver for one season, said to Sportsnet. “I played with the guy. He needs to learn how to hit. That has no part in our game anymore.”
Donald Brashear squaring up against Bruins captain Chara as a member of the Capitals. (Photo by Rashad/Flickr)
Remember in entry number five when I said that intentionally malicious on-ice plays were few and far between? Marty McSorley’s lumberjack swing at the face of Donald Brashear is one of those few.
Both of the players involved were career tough guys. McSorley is best known for being the shadow to Wayne Gretzky, ensuring The Great One was left untouched by opponents. Brashear, meanwhile, still holds the Vancouver Canucks record for most penalty minutes in one season.
It was as a member of the Canucks that Brashear fell victim to one of hockey’s most vicious infractions. McSorley and Brashear had already fought once on Feb. 21, 2000, but McSorley was looking for more action after Brashear injured Bruins goalie Byron Dafoe that night.
McSorley made it clear throughout the game that he had Brashear’s number, according to SI. He attempted to engage in a fight numerous times without Brashear taking the bait. His frustrations were magnified by the Canucks’ tough guy showboating; Brashear “skated near the Boston bench and taunted the Bruins by flexing his muscles.”
With time running down on the clock, McSorley took his stick and two-handed Brashear directly on the side of his head. The blow knocked Brashear down to the ice, where he violently hit his head and was immediately knocked unconscious. Brashear suffered a Grade III concussion and an on-ice seizure because of the incident.
“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Mattias Ohlund said to the Vancouver Sun after the game. “That guy [McSorley] should be treated the same as if he tried to kill a guy on the street.”
McSorley was promptly ejected from the game and subsequently handed an indefinite suspension from the NHL. He was additionally charged and found guilty of assault with a weapon by a British Columbia court, though he was not given jail time. McSorley only served 23 games of his year-long suspension before hanging up his skates for good.
“I have no halo,” McSorley said in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “Look, I take responsibility for what happened. I feel bad that Donald got hurt. But when somebody says that I intentionally struck him in the head with my stick, I have an issue with that, because that goes to the core of who I am and the player I’ve been over the years.”
McSorley testified in court that he was aiming to hit Brashear “high in the body, up around his shoulder area” to instigate a fight. He claims he never meant any harm. “I’m not comfortable with what happened, but I am comfortable with what I intended to do,” he said in the same SI interview.
The notoriety of this incident alone would have been enough to earn it a spot on this list, but coupled with both intent to injure and the disastrous aftermath of the play, Todd Bertuzzi’s cheap shot on Steve Moore is unquestionably one of the most brutal of all time.
(Photo: The Hockey Writers library)
In order to understand the scope of this incident, you have to backtrack several weeks. Steve Moore was a rookie for the Colorado Avalanche when he crumpled Canucks captain Markus Naslund with an explosive, but legal, open-ice hit on Feb. 16, 2004.
Moore’s hit was described by then-Canucks coach Marc Crawford as “a cheap shot by a young kid on a captain, leading scorer in the league” and “a marginal player going after a superstar with a headhunting hit” as reported by the Georgia Straight.
Naslund suffered a concussion on the play and set off a chain reaction of intense games between the Avalanche and Canucks. Brad May was reported by Sports Illustrated as saying there would be “a bounty” placed on Moore’s head.
Moore had a target on his back from the beginning of the game on March 8, 2004 with players like May laying the body on hard. But no one took it as far as Todd Bertuzzi did. Bertuzzi lurked behind Moore as the play moved up ice, grabbing an unsuspecting Moore by the back of the jersey and decking him with a sucker punch to the neck. Both men collapsed to the ice as a pile-up began to form on top of an already injured Moore.
“[It was] the worst thing I’ve seen,” said Derek Morris, an Avalanche defenseman at the time of the incident. “That was a premeditated act. We got a guy hurt because of that. It was disgusting. There’s no other word for that.”
It’s unclear exactly when each injury occurred, but by the time the bodies had cleared, Moore was left with three broken vertebrae in his neck, a serious concussion and facial cuts. He was laying on the ice for 10 minutes before being stretchered off. He never stepped foot on the ice as a professional hockey player again.
After that game, there was a lot of threats being made by [the Canucks]. I started to think this is not normal. The next thing I know, I’m lying on a stretcher with doctors standing over me, cutting off my equipment.
Per NHL protocol, Bertuzzi was issued a match penalty and suspended indefinitely. The incident led to a nearly decade-long legal battle in three different courts across the U.S. and Canada. Moore and his family sought significant monetary damages from Bertuzzi and the Canucks organization, with Moore claiming injustice that his NHL career was ended before his rookie season concluded.
“I lost my entire career in my rookie year,” Moore said to ESPN. “I think any player put in that situation would do the same thing. I can’t recover anything else. I can’t recover my career, the experience of living out my dream from the time I was 2½ years old of playing in the NHL.”
In the end, the parties reached an out-of-court settlement in August of 2014. Global TV reported that the settlement was worth $22 million – $15 million paid by the NHL and $7 million split between Bertuzzi, the Canucks and John McCaw, who was a part-time owner of the Canucks.
In his autobiography titled “Shift Work”, Tie Domi called this unnecessary blind-side elbow “the dumbest thing I did in my career.” Devils defenseman Scott Niedermayer was skating innocently behind the play when Domi raised his elbow and caught Niedermayer in the face. Initially, players and refs were unsure how Niedermayer sustained the injury since it occurred so far behind the play. However, a livid Scott Stevens alerted on-ice officials from the penalty box.
“I don’t think there is any question what happened was over the line,” Niedermayer said to the New York Times days after the injury. ”It doesn’t do anything good for hockey. That’s for sure.”
Domi, a notoriously tough player, was said to have threatened Niedermayer several games before the incident.
”He said he was going to take a suspension on me,” Niedermayer said in the same article. “If you look at it very simply, what he said is what happened.”
Domi was suspended for the remainder of the 2001 playoffs plus eight regular season games in 2001-02.
If it wasn’t for this hit, Marc Savard would still be playing in the NHL, according to the man himself.
“Just not to be able to be on the ice with the guys, knowing that I could contribute, was probably the toughest thing,’’ Savard said to the Boston Globe following the Bruins’ 2011 Stanley Cup championship.
Though Savard went on to play in seven playoff games in 2010 and 25 in the 2010-11 regular season, the Grade II concussion he suffered on this play was the beginning of the end. Cooke caught Savard in the head with his shoulder behind the play, leading to outrage from players and fans – but no penalty was ever called, and Cooke was not disciplined by the league in any way. Given Cooke’s laundry list of suspensions and controversial hits, this is one that Bruins fans will perhaps never get over. Savard, on the other hand, tries to be positive about it.
“At the end of the day, I guess I’ll be known for that,” he said to TSN while discussing the league’s subsequent revamping of player safety rules. “It’s for the best of the game. Unfortunately, at the time, there wasn’t a penalty to be served for what had gone on, a blindside hit. I’m glad that something good happened out of it anyway.”
This hit is one of the NHL’s most infamous, and though I don’t think it should rank among the dirtiest, it undoubtedly deserves a mention on this list. In Game 6 of the 1996 Western Conference Finals, Colorado forward Claude Lemieux effectively sparked a heated rivalry between the Avalanche and Red Wings that would last for years. Red Wings forward Kris Draper was playing the puck only feet from the boards, and Lemieux decked him with a dangerous hit from behind that sent Draper face-first into the front of the Red Wings bench.
Lemieux was promptly ejected from the game and suspended for two games. Meanwhile, Draper required reconstructive facial surgery for a broken jaw, cheekbone, and orbital bone. The Avalanche eventually won the series and went on to become Stanley Cup Champions for the first time in their history.
Red Wings tough guy Dino Ciccarelli famously remarked after his team’s loss: “I can’t believe I shook this guy’s friggin’ hand after the game. That pisses me right off.”