Images of Mikael Tam being taken off the ice following a vicious elbow by Patrice Cormier have been seen around the world. (Dominic Chamberland/QMI Agency/Canadian Press)

Quebec junior hockey player Patrice Cormier will learn his fate Monday at 11 a.m. ET after eight days of endless replays, dozens of editorials, hundreds of thousands of written words and one semi-apology.

The Rouyn-Noranda Huskies centre and this year's Team Canada junior captain started the affair by racing off the bench on Jan. 17, putting the laser sights on Mikael Tam, who was cutting through centre, and laying him out with a flying elbow.

Tam, a defenceman with the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL, lay convulsing on the ice and was ultimately hospitalized overnight in Rouyn-Noranda.

He has since been released with a concussion and a couple of missing teeth.

Gilles Courteau, the league's commissioner, is expected to announce how long Cormier, who is already on an indefinite suspension pending a final decision, will sit.

Many are calling for it to be the rest of the 19-year-old's junior career.

Opinion has not been split in any way.

"The question I have is what's taking so long?" wrote Stu Cowan of the Montreal Gazette. "You would think judgment in this case could be as easy as putting the videotape in the machine, pushing the play button and watching the clip. Case closed."

The Toronto Star, on Sunday, called for coaches to be suspended when players lose their heads and try to seriously injure an opposing athlete.

Rob Granatstein, in a Toronto Sun editorial, questioned why he or anyone else would want to send their kids out to play hockey "if there's going to be an idiot like Patrice Cormier on the other team?"

And the Ottawa Citizen blamed Don Cherry, in a round-about way (someone always blames Cherry): "The culture of Saturday night violence has invaded the heart of the game — the captain of the team that is the core of youth hockey in this country."

Others are calling for police to get involved in this one, and they still might.

As for the young man at the centre of the controversy, he told sports television network RDS the hit was "a reflex … It was never in my intention to cause any injuries."

Critics have said that "reflex" seems to be something of a regular occurrence, pointing to a similar elbow he threw at a Swedish opponent during a world junior exhibition game.

When Cormier learns of his suspension, there is a chance he could play in the American Hockey League this spring, once the Huskies are eliminated from the post-season.

AHL commissioner Dave Andrews, however, said he would have to review the case and his league has, in the past, upheld player suspensions from other loops.

Cormier was a second-round pick of the New Jersey Devils in 2008.