All sorts of places have been making a big deal about how we are now in a new decade, and have been reviewing certain events of the last decade. Best game, biggest upsets, greatest goals, etc... I think I'm going to go ahead and get in on that action (a little late, but still getting in on it nonetheless. This particular event, whenever I re-visit it, always makes me mad for a few different reasons.
In 2004, the Colorado Avalanche has a very heated rivalry going with the Vancouver Canucks. Things began to go even farther with this rivalry when Steve Moore had a questionable hit on Markus Naslund. Here's a link for that with some "interesting" remarks made by former Avalanche Coach, then Vancouver coach, Marc Crawford. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owpYYNjWnro) I have to say that this is the point in history where I lost all respect for Crawford, which is tough considering he was the coach when the Avs won their first cup. The assertion that this was a cheap hit, and that the refs should have more respect and make a call when it was a hit on a star player. I'm sorry, Marc, this is not the NBA, and he is not Kobe Bryant. Do star players get preferential treatment? Sure, that's impossible to deny, but don't act like every single time a star player gets hit hard in an emotional game that the refs need to call a penalty. It was a tough hit, and ended baldy based off of a lot of circumstances. Naslund was stretched out, which caused his head to be much lower than it otherwise would have been. He was stretching out as Moore moved in to make a shoulder check on him, which, when thrown all together at the same time, caused a bad hit with an elbow. THAT, however, is not what really caused the problem. That was not enough to give Naslund the concussion that he suffered at the end of this play. Naslund, as many hockey players do, doesn't have his helmet fully secured, and you can see that his helmet slid off just enough that, when he did get to the ice, his head had no protection. THAT, caused the concussion. You can argue all you want about this, but the league ruled and it ruled correctly in saying that this was not a penalty, nor was it a dirty hit by any means. No suspension was given, and none should have been given, no matter who was hit in this play.
The unfortunate part about this lead to what I see as one of the most disgusting acts I have ever seen, if not THE most disgusting and cowardly act, in sports. The infamous sucker punch on Steve Moore by Todd Bertuzzi. Here's a link to that. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA8cdtpV0vM). Again, say whatever you want about this incident, this was a premeditated assault. How do we know this? It was well publicized that the Canucks were talking about getting back at Moore, and that there was a price on his head. Plus, the next year, when Brad May, then of the Canucks, signed with the Avalanche, he admitted to the press that they had planned on getting Moore in the Canuck locker room. All of this leads to bigger questions about the league and the way it is currently run, but for the time being, I'll relegate myself to the "discipline" that was given to Bertuzzi. He was suspended for the rest of the season, and the playoffs, which ended up being a grand total of 17 games, and was then re-instated the next season. Before you start, YES, I know that the official "next season" was the year of the lockout. I am speaking of the next time that there was a season. At that time, our all knowledgeable, please notice the sarcasm, Commish (Gary Bettman) determined that a full year of suspension was enough of a punsihment, and brought him back. Here's the only issue, he wasn't suspended that season, he was locked out. Nobody played, so for Bettman to say that there was an extra punishment of missing a season is completely and totally false. But Bettman, in his George W. Bush-like way of running things, is always convinced that he is in the right, and has never second guessed this ruling. So while Bertuzzi continues to play for millions of dollars, Steve Moore still sits at home, suffering from post-concussion syndrome, with fracture in his neck that will never allow him to play hockey again. Criminal charges were brought against Bertuzzi, and he pled guilty, and was sentence to community service. Ask yourself, if this was Marty McSorely, or Bob Probert, or some other notorious thug, would they have gotten this leniency? We know the answer to that question.
It continues to shock and amaze me that Bertuzzi is even allowed near a rink anymore, let alone allowed to play the game of hockey. True, his career has definitely gone down a few notches ever since this incident, a bit of karma if you ask me, yet the man still plays. The bigger problem this creates is that Bettman constantly claims that things like this have no place in hockey, yet he enables a goon like Bertuzzi to get away with this kind of action. His penalty was a slap on the wrist for breaking somebody's neck, and until the NHL gets a commissioner that has the guts to stand up against hits like this for real, somebody who won't tolerate it no matter how many goals the goon scores, until the NHL gets somebody no nonsense like the NFL has, these things will continue to happen. If I had one bit of justice to dole out, one sentence to give, it would be this. I would suspend Bertuzzi for life, and make it so that every day, at least twice a day, he is forced to watch the replay over and over, and see the after effects of what he did, so that every single day he is reminded that he took away another person's livelihood. As we get a start to a new decade, I hope that fewer things like this happen in the NHL, because this sort of thing doesn't belong in the league, but as long as there are thugs like Bertuzzi, coaches who condone this action like Marc Crawford, and enabling commissioners unwilling to admit fault like Gary Bettman, the greater problems of the NHL will never be full solved.
**off my soap box**
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