This.
Edit: The only thing I'd add, which I believe Brooks pointed out in a previous piece, is that precedent has been set not only by the NHL (we talked yesterday about the Avery suspension for saying "sloppy seconds"). On April 13, 2011, L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant called an NBA official a "fucking faggot." Despite being one of the league's superstars, the next day, Bryant was fined $100,000 by the NBA. A month and a half later, Chicago Bull Joakim Noah yelled "Fuck you, faggot" at a fan - and was fined $50,000 by the league.
Note that, unlike the fines handed out by the NFL to Joey Porter, or by MLB to Ozzie Guillen (both for using the same word), both of these NBA instances were yelled in the heat of the moment, during a game, and were corroborated only by word of mouth and lip-readers. In other words, exactly the same situation the NHL is using to justify their lack of punishment.
When Bill Plaschke yells that all the fighting is why people consider hockey a "fringe sport," it's because he's an idiot. But shit like this? Joke league.
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