Connor-icles: The McDavid hand injury, and the 5 stages of grief

The real cause for a Great Canadian Hand Wring would have been if Connor McDavid had been felled by a blindside check to the head instead of suffering a self-inflicted injury in a fight.

The former, after all, is a much greater threat to major junior hockey players' safety and long-term health than fighting. Then again, 99.9 per cent of players in the Canadian Hockey League are not the golden goose that is seen as integral to Team Canada ending a five-year drought at the world junior championship, which starts in a little more than six weeks.

McDavid, who is seeing a hand specialist on Wednesday and is out indefinitely after his fight with Mississauga Steelheads captain Bryson Cianfrone prompted a wide and varied reaction, some of which was irrational, because Twitter. The five hot takes could be sorted essentially as follows:

1) Making the anti-fighting argument — Someone was bound to use this as the jumping-off point for a debate about whether fighting should still be allowed in the OHL and the other two major junior leagues. It's understandable why the media wants to strike while the iron is hot, but really, this was a freak occurrence since McDavid appeared to hurt himself by striking his right hand on an inanimate object

Really, the only lesson is to not to throw hands near the boards, son.

Using McDavid's injury to make an anti-fighting case hurts the cause, frankly, and it's elitist. The overall well-being of every player in the CHL counts.

2) Old hockey guys getting excited and giving everyone else the sads — As Toronto Star reporter Kevin McGran wryly noted, McDavid "might have gained respect of the dinosaurs who love fighting." Love fighting all you like, but it comes off as a sad statement that the 17-year-old became someone's 'my kind of player' by doing something pretty much every competitive hockey player can do, instead of everything that makes him, well, Connor McDavid.

3) Wondering how Erie could have prevented it — Fair or not as it is to second-guess in the world's fastest-moving team sport, where the coaches have arguably the least influence of the actual gameplay relative to football, basketball and baseball, the Otters are being questioned for not having enough protection around their star. As The Globe & Mail's Cathal Kelly put it, "People are also going to wonder why no one jumped in on McDavid’s behalf (though, in fairness, there was no real time to do that)."

The OHL, though, has rightly phased enforcers out of existence by instituting a fight threshold and cracking down on staged fighting. By design, fights should only happen when a player has a honest beef, which McDavid apparently had for some reason. It's glib to say the system worked. This was an unintended consequence.

4) Wondering what this says about McDavid — It says he is 17, turning 18 on Jan. 13. Regardless of his "unusual sense of calm" and the apt appellation of McJesus, people at that age are very human and are going to act irrationally. Someone steeped in the hockey culture is going to act in a stereotypical hockey fashion occasionally. Shocking, I know.

If anything, the OHL might want to review how its officials are calling stick fouls against McDavid. The historic tendency with superstars, contrary to popular belief, often involves letting everyday hacks and whacks go, as a way of the referees acting as an equalizer

Erie's games have been fairly penalty-free, typically, with only 138 total power plays in their 18 games. That's toward the lower end by OHL standards.

5) Disparaging the other guy — Former NHL forward Colby Armstrong's tweet disparaging Cianfrone's ability got around the Twitterverse twice before the truth could start tweeting.

Pigeon? McDavid is the captain and the leading scorer on the Erie Otters. Cianfrone is the captain and leading scorer on the Mississauga Steelheads, albeit with barely one-quarter as many points. That wasn't necessary. Cianfrone didn't really provoke anything; all the undrafted 19-year-old was doing was trying to play hard against the other team's No. 1 centre.

Meantime, there should be further word on how many games, or weeks, McDavid is out.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.