The National Hockey League has no tolerance for water bottle shenanigans.
Dallas Stars forward Jamie Benn is the latest to run afoul of the league’s bench blast ban, having been fined $5000 for a quick squirt from outside the playing surface.
Benn fired off a round of some high quality H2O right into the face of Chicago Blackhawks forward MacKenzie Entwhistle. No penalty was called on the play.
Nice to see the league crack down after they let Minnesota’s Marcus Foligno slide for a similar attack earlier this season.
Others have not been so fortunate.
Ottawa’s Scott Sabourin was given a 10-minute misconduct and fined $1,881 for spraying Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele. The New York Rangers have seen $5000 fines issued to both Kevin Hayes (2017) and Henrik Lundqvist (2014) for spraying opponents with water bottles. Boston’s Shawn Thornton also took a hit to the paycheck after sharing some hydration.
Benn is earning $9.5 million this season, which works out to $116k per game. It’s not like he’ll never financially recover from this…