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Dale Weise Offers Multiple Excuses for Embarrassingly Refusing to Fight Shawn Thornton

Saturday was a sad day for hockey.

For those of you who watched the highly anticipated Bruins-Canucks matchup in Boston, you can’t help but agree.

No, I’m not talking about some hip check; I’m referring to the Habs-like act pulled by Dale Weise – a professional hockey player, who stands in at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds — jawing at an opponent and then skating away to hide behind referees when the puck dropped.

Sure we all had a good laugh when Weise hastily retreated as Shawn Thornton challenged him to go during the Canucks win. But what we may not have seen (or heard) since then was why he decided to run away.

Sure enough, he’s got a few great excuses — er, reasons — as to why he wasn’t going to throw down with the B’s tough guy, and he shared them with The Province.

“You know what? Me and [Adam] McQuaid were having words and I was under the impression that we might have went and I guess [Thornton] thought I was challenging him,” recalled Weise, as he readied for the Panthers in Florida on Monday.

“But at the end of the day, that’s not really the type of guy I want to fight.”

But those two excuses weren’t the real reason why he opted not to drop the mitts. Apparently his tussle with Nathan Horton tuckered him out.

“I got in the box and we exchanged a couple of words and I realized how tired I was,” he remembered. “And when I got out of there, I still couldn’t catch my breath and that’s why a couple of other guys were challenging me. It was like, ‘Let me catch my breath.’”

So let’s recap:

-He wanted to fight McQuaid instead.
-He didn’t want to fight the “type of guy” Thornton is.
-He was tired.

Fear not, Canucks fans, as Weise should be ready to go and will likely have his breath back next time someone challenges him. After all, the guy now famous in Boston for talking the talk and not walking the walk, even said so himself.

“We stick together in here,” he proudly declared on Monday. “We stand up for each other and when guys have to step up and answer the bell, we have more than a handful who will do that in this room.”

As long as the bell isn’t a hulking figure wearing a spoked-B and a No. 22 on his back.