In last night’s NHL exhibition game between Florida and Montreal, the Canadiens’ Max Domi decked Aaron Ekblad of Florida. The term “sucker punch” is being applied.
This isn’t Domi’s finest moment, and I bet he gets suspended.
But I’m not sure it’s a “sucker punch.”
Ekblad had slashed Domi, and the two were tangled up (although Ekblad clearly didn’t want to fight).
But the dictionary definition of “sucker punch” calls it a blow delivered “without warning and often without apparent provocation.”
Domi’s shot does not fit that description. If Ekblad didn’t recognize getting punched as a distinct possibility, he was ill-advisedly not paying attention.