It’s one of the biggest discussions in the world of football, and on Thursday afternoon SportsCage guests Arash Madani and Glen Suitor weighed in on Josh Hagerty’s suspension for striking an opposing player in the groin.
In short, their message was simple: dismay and disgust with a play both felt went way beyond what should be on a football field.
The incidents occurred during the Week 15 game at B.C. Place between the Lions and Montreal. Based on video evidence, Hagerty twice struck Alouettes running back Liam Talbot in the groin, resulting in Talbot needing surgery to repair life-altering injuries and ending his season.
You can see the plays below:
“When the headline is ‘life-altering injury’, I guess the question I would like to have answered is ‘what the hell were you thinking, what the hell were you doing?’ Madani said on his Coast to Coast segment. “It’s not like this is a rookie that doesn’t know any better, this is a vet that’s been around. I really just don’t know what to say.”
The CFL came down hard on Hagerty — a Regina product and U of S Huskies grad — with a two-game suspension on Thursday.
Roughriders legend Glen Suitor has been in battles on the field and pointed to a code that players follow that should have prevented Hagerty from doing what he did. Suitor used a chop block as an example, saying that laying a hit like that will not only draw a response from the opposition.
“If you're a player that commits that foul, most of the time your teammates will come to you and correct you,” Suitor said. “The leaders will come up to you and say ‘not cool, don’t do that again, you’re wearing this jersey, you’re representing everyone in this room.’”
Whether that happened or not, Suitor was of the opinion both acts were intentional.
“Stuff happens on the field… but what happened here, because it happened twice, it was premeditated,” he said. “It was a gameplan for Hagerty and that’s a problem, this is way beyond the code, even the chop block code. I guarantee his teammates were saying ‘what were you doing?’”
When it was suggested that this was something Hagerty has done before and got away with, hence trying again this time, Suitor wasn’t so sure.
“It can’t be something he does regularly because it would have been caught before, opposing players would have been screaming,” Suitor said before asking how Hagerty would even get the idea to commit such an act. “And I guarantee you he didn’t learn this at the U of S, there’s no way this was ever taught or even allowed. No coach would say do what you have to do, I don’t care what line you cross.”
Both guests felt the suspension should have been longer, with Madani suggesting it was the CFL collective bargaining agreement that prevented Hagerty from being sidelined for a greater length of time, though that wasn’t confirmed.
As it stands, B.C. is currently on a bye week, meaning Hagerty will miss the Week 17 game on Friday, Sept. 25 against the B.C. Lions and the Week 18 game on Saturday, Oct. 3 against the Toronto Argonauts. He’s eligible to return in Week 19 when B.C. hosts the Ottawa Redblacks.
