Doug Risebrough Is A Real Piece Of Work

Wild GM Risebrough got all snooty in the Strib the other day over fans' backlash to the deal to acquire Chris Simon, who has been suspended eight times in the NHL. Risebrough made some curious comments:

"Give him a fresh start. People deserve second chances."

Simon has been suspended eight times. So this is more like his ninth chance.

"There's no doubt the incidents that have caused attention here were mistakes and poorly motivated decisions by Chris, but the players haven't been dramatically hurt."

In Simon's two most suspensions, one was the result of him taking a two-handed swing with his stick at a player. According to Wikipedia, Barry Melrose said that the player escaped serious injury because Simon's blow caught his shoulder pads before hitting his face. The other suspension was because he stepped on a player with his skate. Risebrough seems to be fine with crap like this as long as you don't actually cause a serious injury. To be fair to Simon, one of his suspensions wasn't because he took tried to maim somebody ... it was because he used a racial slur against a black player.

Risebrough later took a curious turn in defending Simon:

"Why would they (fans) know he's got three young kids and he's a soft-spoken guy?"

Being a father and soft-spoken doesn't make up for being a racist thug. It'd be funny and fitting if the smug Risebrough's team fails to make the playoffs this year.