On Saturday night in an intense CHL game between Fort Wayne and Dayton, Komets defenseman Brent Henley (he's No. 43 in white in the clip below) lined up the Gems' Brett Lutes for a hit. Lutes' defense mechanism of choice was to cross-check Henley in the head, sending him to the ice.
He remained there for a few moments, got up and tried to gain a measure of revenge. At about the 40-second mark, watch as Henley sends two on-the-ice knees to the face of Lutes; what you don't see, but what the CHL alleges, is that Henley also spat on him.
That kneeing, which nearly brought the Gems off their bench for a real melee, earned Henley 25 minutes in penalties, including a major for kneeing and a game misconduct for spitting. It also earned him a 3-game suspension, which is significant as the Komets lost one of their best defensemen during the Turner Cup Playoffs. (He'll miss the first two games of the semifinals this weekend.)
Henley denies he used Lutes as a spittoon. "I would never spit on anyone," he told Justin Cohn of the Journal Gazette.
Huh. Is he saying there's a second spitter? Because if so, that is one magic loogie …