March, 12, 2004
By Alex J.Walling

Well I see that Todd (the sucker puncher) Bertuzzi got off lightly. Yes lightly.

So he misses the end of the regular season. That’s no big deal. The playoffs he will not see. So what are we looking at?

Let’s say the Cannucks got booted out in the first round in six games that makes it under a 20 game suspension. If you are a Cannucks fan and you win the first round and lose the second, the figure comes out to 25 games.

Gee, I wonder how many games Steve Moore will miss?

Suspending this player, who is not a first time offender by the way, for this season and all of next would have been better. The NHL once again missed a chance to ‘really send a message’.

Don’t give me this ‘he’ll lose his paycheck’. Sure, he’ll lose some of it but when you’re making the kind of money he is (around 6-7 million) then a few hundred grand or a million is still not that much and most hockey fans would be willing to bet that the team will ‘find a way’ to let him re-coup some if not most of that money lost.

Many opinions were voiced on this matter over the past few days but the one I heard, two or three times, were from lawyers and prosecutors who stated ‘why should a hockey arena be immune from the laws of our land’.

One caller to the Rick (Hotline) Howe show had a great quote when he said ‘why do hockey players think they have diplomatic immunity when they put on skates and play NHL hockey?’

Why do we think they should get away with near murder?

In fact I wonder if it will take a murder to have the NHL do something drastic in so far as a punitive measure is concerned and will it take a paralization as a result of a cheap shot, or a coma or death before we see some guy like a McSorley or Bertuzzi get sentenced for a spell in jail.

No matter how vicious this incident is there are some people who maintain it is part of the game. To those we can only pray for them. If they think stalking a person, then blind-siding him, then pushing with inertia of a 245 pound body and driving a person to the ice, head first, is OK, then no mere words from anyone can help them.

But I’m glad to see the public outrage and many from Bertuzzi’s current home town of Vancouver.

Within a few weeks the Vancouver cops will decide if they will lay charges of assault on this hockey player or facsimile of it because that is not how minor kids are taught how to play the game.

What more evidence do they want?

If you did that in the work place, in front of witnesses, you would be taken out into the paddy wagon in handcuffs.

The NHL arenas are workplaces.

We send people to prison for a weekend for much less. If you were assaulted in your workplace, hit from behind, face to the desk and floor, and you had your neck broken, and your assaulter had a previous record for such, the question would not be ‘will there be a prison term’ but rather ‘how much time’ would be handed out by Mr. or Mrs. Justice.

Everyone wants the NHL to send a message it sent a partial one on Thursday but did not go far enough.

What effect do you think it would have if players knew that they assaulted another player that they could be in jail?

I think you would see one of these events maybe every ten years, not every three or four.

Remember Matt Johnson (1998) for his cheap shot on Jeff Beukeboom, or the McSorley / Brashear stick shot, or Derian Hatcher breaking Jeremy Roenick’s jaw (1999) and on and on from the time of Ace Bailey almost getting killed by Eddie Shore in the 30’s to Maurice Richard’s ugly shot against Hal Laycoe in 1955.

And the NHL doesn’t want the cops to get involved.

Sorry, but the above and many 50 more incidents say the NHL can’t police itself.

I saw the Bertuzzi tears and how remorseful he is and says to the Moore family that he didn’t mean to hurt Scott.

Ugh?

Didn’t mean to hurt him! Unless I’ve got bootlegged video I see this guy ‘hounding’ Moore then sucker punches him.

Is Bertuzzi sorry because he did it or because he hoped that remorsefulness may lead to a lighter sentence?

It wasn’t a fight? It was an assault and over what?

I keep hearing and reading that Moore hit Vancouver’s star player Markus Naslund and there is an ‘unwritten rule that you can’t do that’.

I’ve been following this sport for nearly 50 years can someone show me this ‘unwritten rule book’?

Is it from the same ‘rule book’ that says a player should not ‘bunt’ when the opposing pitcher is throwing a no hitter, like what happened a few years ago in a game where by Curt Schilling had a no-no until someone bunted for a single in the seventh inning?

Where can I get a copy of this rule book?

And who is running the game the Vancouver Cannucks or the NHL? The officials did not call a penalty and the video sent to the NHL office still drew no call.

It was a close call, a borderline hit and that is part of the game.

Sort of reminds me when someone from Cape Breton hit Alex Tanguay with a hip check a few years ago. The Mooseheads and their fans were upset that someone dared to hit Tanguay.

What gives? The check was perfectly legal and clean. Moose fans have no problems when Ali MacEachern gave some solid and resounding hip checks but yet we get upset when the opponents to it to us.

Why?

Where does that mentality come from?

Maybe someone should get some tapes of the Leafs glory days (62-64) when they won three Cups in a row and let them look at one of the hardest hitting defensemen ever, and he hit them all from Howe, to Beliveau and Hull. His name should have been Mr. Double-Double, but it was Tim Horton.

A hard clean hit is legal and the sooner the NHL coaches, owners and managers realize that they better.

If this stupid theory of ‘not going after our stars’ really existed then Scott Stevens and so many others would not have legally hit Eric Lindros.

Steve Moore was assaulted and it is that simple and there is no place for an assault anywhere in this country and if one does happen then a price is paid and the more vicious the assault the higher the payment.

One of these days the NHL is going to realize that a ‘few suspended games’ doesn’t cut it. The absolute minimum should have been a full year. I would like to have seen the rest of this year and all of next.

If you’re going to send a message, do it.

Now bring in the cops, handcuff this guy and haul down town, finger print him, show his mug shot to the world and let’s have a trial. I want to hear his defense.

Maybe it’s time for John Cochrane encore.