I hereby award this award

Today, I'm inaugurating my annual Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award. The award will be given to the player who, during the course of the NHL season, gives a public statement that at first glance seems like a reasonable thing to say, but when you consider who the player is and what their history is, is so appallingly hypocritical it makes you go nuts. The first ever winner is the man himself, Pittsburgh Penguins defenceman Brooks Orpik.

In yesterday's Caps-Pens game, Ovechkin tried to hit Sergei Gonchar. It's my opinion that Gonchar was trying to avoid the hit, and they collided knee-on-knee. I completely agree with TSN's Bob Mckenzie that there shouldn't be a suspension as Ovechkin wasn't trying to injure Gonchar.

However, this is what Brooks Orpik had to say about the hit, to the Canadian Press via TSN:

"I mean, you can run guys, guys are fair game, but the guy (Ovechkin) takes strides every time and leaves his feet a lot of times, too," defenceman Brooks Orpik said. "To us, we got the feeling he's really trying to hurt guys at times."

Cue violins immediately after "really trying to hurt guys at times". Why? Because this is coming from the guy who broke Erik Cole's neck. Watch.

To fully appreciate the context, note that the Pens are not only losing the game, but by that time in the season they were already out of the playoffs. Carolina, on the other hand, was set to win their division. This was the year they won the Cup. In that situation, Orpik breaks Erik Cole's neck by running him into the boards.

Orpik was suspended for three games. You may recall that earlier this year, Sean Avery got twenty games for saying something derogatory about a player's girlfriend on TV. Take a moment to reflect on the fact that for the NHL, a player's girlfriend's reputation is worth slightly more than six broken necks.

For having delivered the dirty hit that broke Erik Cole's neck, and generally being a dirty player, and then complaining about how Ovechkin hits people so hard, I award Brooks Orpik the inaugural Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award. Congratulations!