A little while ago Milan Lucic did this because Alexei Emelin caught him with an entirely clean open ice hip check:

Lucic commented after the game that he never speared anyone, and that Emelin is a chicken. Okay...

Fast forward to Friday night in Boston, and Milan Lucic was up to his old tricks:

Oh my. Predictably, you would expect that those people around the Bruins would start to question why big, tough, blue collar face-of-the-franchise Milan Lucic keeps pulling the most cowardly move possible, right?

Well, this is Boston, so no. The apparently prestigious Boston Globe led the charge on Friday night, pumping out an article titled "In Defense of Lucic's Cheap Shot - Welcome to Playoff Hockey" by Jerard Fagerberger, whose parents apparently couldn't spell Gerard and have a stupid last name. Let's take a gander.

"Though many will bemoan Milan Lucic's grape-busting stick work on Detroit's Danny DeKeyser in the second period of Game 1, the simple fact is that in the Stanley Cup Playoffs the ends do justify the means."

Well, at least you didn't wait a whole sentence into your article to expose yourself as not only a homer, but a dumb one at that. The ends justify the means? Really? Alright then, I suggest Bertuzzi sharpen his stick and impale Tuukka Rask. Ends justify the means and you've gotta win in the playoffs, amirite????

"Of course, most incidents like this aren't caught on camera, and most aren't perpetrated by someone as widely disliked as Milan Lucic, but anyone who has ever laced a pair knows how much cheap stuff behind the play can take an opponent off their game."

Invoking yourself as a supposed expert who "played the game" while at the same time building in a persecution complex for Lucic. Impressive. The fact is that Lucic is hated in Montreal, but generally loved by hockey fans around the league because he's big, tough as nails, and can score. This has led to him being one of the most overrated players in the NHL, with people thinking his joke of a contract is actually fair value for a one-dimensional 25 goal scorer who's carried by David Krejci. He even got talk for Team Canada, even though realistically he would struggle to fit on Canada's C team.

"Granted, it wasn't fair for Looch to mortgage DeKeyser's future kids to gain the mental edge but, especially when you're playing a team as composed and systemic as Detroit, getting in the other team's head is a game-changing intangible. Goading. Antagonization. Retaliation. These are all aspects of the game that get amplified when you're playing the same guys night in and night out. Call it cheap. Call it troglodyte gutter politics, but the fact is that, when you're in the hunt, tempers run hot, and there's no such thing as a short memory."

So, call it what it is but it's okay because it's the Bruins doing it. This is hilarious because if the Habs were doing this sort of stuff to the Bruins, you know this guy would be losing it. The media in Boston (and Lucic) were still crying about a clean hip check a week after the game it happened in.

"Detroit, which finished dead last in the league with only nine major penalties in 2013-14, is one of the most disciplined teams in the NHL. Their success hinges on it. When they lose their composure, they fall apart - which was something that the Chicago Blackhawks discovered and exploited in the Western Conference Quarterfinals last year. They flipped the turtle on its back, and it put their series in their hands."

Um... This didn't happen. If you had actually watched that series, the storyline was that Jonathan Toews was acting like a big baby because Detroit got him off his game, specifically Henrik Zetterberg, and it wasn't until Brent Seabrook calmed him down that the Hawks started to get back into it.

"Lucic doesn't exactly have a Lady Byng reputation, but giving someone the business when the ref is up ice is all in the game."

No, no it isn't. It's spearing. Spearing is not in the game, it's a serious infraction that carries a five minute major penalty and a game misconduct. We've heard this tripe before from Bruins media, talking about how blatant interference was a "hockey play". Basically the rule of thumb is that if a Bruin does it, they'll find an excuse for it.

You may be thinking that this is just some nobody trying to get noticed, and you're right.

And, with the piece I file tonight, I am well on my way to being the dude that hockey fans hate — Jerard Fagerberg (@JGFagerberg) April 19, 2014

The problem is that it's not just him. For that story to get published, it has to get through an editorial staff, and you get bigger names supporting the idiocy in the article:

So Lucic's cheap shot is going to make the rounds for sure. But don't be so quick to hate on what he's trying to do: http://t.co/4dHpJ2TwjZ — Zuri Berry (@zuriberry) April 19, 2014

And it's not like they were the only ones:

@Dejan_Kovacevic That's rich from a guy that spent an entire blog post whining & caterwauling abt a giveaway for Sid the Kid on a scoresheet — Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) April 19, 2014

And unfortunately even our SBN buddies got into it, somehow twisting a blatant and unprovoked shot to the nuts into battle of the sexes:

PREACH RT @twowittoowhoo: @sarah_connors Oh, your balls hurt? My reproductive organs attack me every month, regularly — Sarah Connors (@sarah_connors) April 19, 2014

guys are such huge babies about their junk, good lord — Sarah Connors (@sarah_connors) April 19, 2014

i hope a guy gets speared in the junk every game from now on until forever. And I will laugh about it every time. Fuck off. — Sarah Connors (@sarah_connors) April 19, 2014

You've gotta love it when being a sore loser makes someone completely lose their mind and make statements they have no way of backing up with any sort of context. Comparing cramps to a nutshot would be like a guy saying women are wimps about pregnancy because we have to take big poops sometimes and that sucks too. It's irrelevant, stupid, embarrassing, and doesn't make any sense.

But I guess that's the depths Boston has to sink to in order to pretend something as indefensible as a repeat nutshotter (new word?) is now okay.

And this is only game one. This is going to be a very fun playoffs.