Cooke ended up walking away from the play without a penalty or suspension even though Savard would be sidelined for a long period while playing his last NHL game less than a year later.
The Athletic's Joshua Kloke spoke with Cooke regrading the play to which he admitted it is the one aspect of his career that he would change.
Cooke admits to having never actually spoken with Savard but claims to have attempted to reach out on multiple occasions. He seems to hate that Savard was hurt on the play but justifies it with the fact that hits to the head were not illegal at the time.
It has been more than a decade since the dirty hit and it seems as though Cooke has very little remorse for what happened, if any at all.
POLL | ||
18 FEVRIER | 757 ANSWERS Matt Cooke admits to this on the hit that ended Marc Savard's career Was Cooke's hit on Savard Dirty? | ||
Yes | 706 | 93.3 % |
No | 51 | 6.7 % |
List of polls |