The 2013-14 NHL playoffs already featured a story about a water bottle. Remember when Corey Perry squirted water in Jeff Carter’s glove? Now here comes another story, but this time there’s a lot more controversy. Boston’s Shawn Thornton reportedly squirted water at P.K. Subban. At first people believed it was spit, but the video (what limited video there is) seems to show Thornton using his water bottle to spray some water at Subban as he skates past the Boston bench.
Thornton seemed pretty pleased with himself.
Here’s the best look we currently have:
It’s not very clear, but you can see a decent amount of liquid coming at Subban as he skates past the bench. It’s clearly too much to just be spit, but it’s difficult to tell if the water was shot from Thornton’s bottle or if he sprayed it in his mouth and then spit it at Subban.
Subban wasn’t pleased:
As you might imagine, the Twitter-verse exploded with everyone trying to analyze the situation and figure out what happened. Given the nature of the series and fans using racist taunts on Subban, everything is under a microscope. Thornton’s spray/squirt/spit/whatever may have been just a player trolling another player, but it’s viewed under a harsh light given recent events. It’s not completely fair and it’s bizarre that Perry’s water bottle incident was given a pass and this wasn’t, but that’s the NHL for you.
