lilcountriegal
Senior Member
Has anyone seen the clip of this? Totally disgusting. This guy needs harsher punishment than suspension..
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- You sit back, take deep breaths, search for means of awarding a benefit of a doubt to Vancouver Canucks winger Todd Bertuzzi.
But then you keep coming back to this, and this almost certainly is the case from the Maritimes to Florida, from British Columbia to Southern California:
Bertuzzi's cheap-shot sucker punch from behind on Colorado's Steve Moore on Monday night in Vancouver, and then his driving of Moore's head into the ice, was despicable and indefensible.
Bertuzzi should be suspended for a year. A full year.
It's sickening, and that was the case even before the news broke Tuesday morning that Moore had suffered fractured vertebrae. He has the use of his limbs, and there will be no paralysis, but that doesn't lessen the shock -- or the disgrace.
It still would have been sickening if Moore had walked out of the hospital Tuesday morning, groggy and with cuts.
In fact, it goes beyond sickening.
It goes so far beyond that it seems trivial to even talk about how the Canucks and Bertuzzi should be affected in terms of hockey.
But this has to be said: Bertuzzi should not be allowed to play for at least a year, under the precedent set by the league's ruling in Marty McSorley's nailing of the Canucks' Donald Brashear in the head with his stick in Vancouver.
Yes, that's taking into account the effects of Bertuzzi's actions, and not just the actions itself. If Moore hadn't been so severely injured, of course the argument would be different. Then it would have been to suspend him for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs.
But part of the hockey code, so embraced and so much a part of this incident until Bertuzzi's ultimate action stepped far over that undefined line, is accountability and responsibility. Even if Bertuzzi is genuinely remorseful, that doesn't mitigate what he did. It was worse than McSorley's nailing of Brashear.
Far worse.
McSorley's actions were indefensible, but he was trying to goad Brashear into a fight. Bertuzzi was a coward, taking the cheap way out in a game in which his team was getting blown out at home.
And even if one buys into every element of that code, Moore had answered the call earlier in the game, fighting Matt Cooke in the first period.
That should have been it, though it's curious that this was the second time the teams had met since Moore's hit on Markus Naslund in Denver on Feb. 16, and the Canucks hadn't been as retributive in a 5-5 tie in Denver last week. Yes, that was a tight game and the points were important -- and by sheer coincidence commissioner Gary Bettman was at the game -- but the irony was that in 1997, Colorado winger Mike Keane and Colorado coach Marc Crawford were justifiably disdainful of the Detroit Red Wings for waiting to seek justice from Claude Lemieux until the game was in Joe Louis Arena. And both Keane and Crawford were on the Vancouver bench Monday night, with Crawford smirking as Colorado coach Tony Granato -- mirroring Crawford's screaming at Scotty Bowman during the 1997 conference finals -- hollered at Crawford while Moore was down on the ice.
There is going to be more to this story as it unfolds, both from the league perspective and from Moore's outlook and prognosis.
But Bertuzzi should be done with hockey for a long, long time.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- You sit back, take deep breaths, search for means of awarding a benefit of a doubt to Vancouver Canucks winger Todd Bertuzzi.
But then you keep coming back to this, and this almost certainly is the case from the Maritimes to Florida, from British Columbia to Southern California:
Bertuzzi's cheap-shot sucker punch from behind on Colorado's Steve Moore on Monday night in Vancouver, and then his driving of Moore's head into the ice, was despicable and indefensible.
Bertuzzi should be suspended for a year. A full year.
It's sickening, and that was the case even before the news broke Tuesday morning that Moore had suffered fractured vertebrae. He has the use of his limbs, and there will be no paralysis, but that doesn't lessen the shock -- or the disgrace.
It still would have been sickening if Moore had walked out of the hospital Tuesday morning, groggy and with cuts.
In fact, it goes beyond sickening.
It goes so far beyond that it seems trivial to even talk about how the Canucks and Bertuzzi should be affected in terms of hockey.
But this has to be said: Bertuzzi should not be allowed to play for at least a year, under the precedent set by the league's ruling in Marty McSorley's nailing of the Canucks' Donald Brashear in the head with his stick in Vancouver.
Yes, that's taking into account the effects of Bertuzzi's actions, and not just the actions itself. If Moore hadn't been so severely injured, of course the argument would be different. Then it would have been to suspend him for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs.
But part of the hockey code, so embraced and so much a part of this incident until Bertuzzi's ultimate action stepped far over that undefined line, is accountability and responsibility. Even if Bertuzzi is genuinely remorseful, that doesn't mitigate what he did. It was worse than McSorley's nailing of Brashear.
Far worse.
McSorley's actions were indefensible, but he was trying to goad Brashear into a fight. Bertuzzi was a coward, taking the cheap way out in a game in which his team was getting blown out at home.
And even if one buys into every element of that code, Moore had answered the call earlier in the game, fighting Matt Cooke in the first period.
That should have been it, though it's curious that this was the second time the teams had met since Moore's hit on Markus Naslund in Denver on Feb. 16, and the Canucks hadn't been as retributive in a 5-5 tie in Denver last week. Yes, that was a tight game and the points were important -- and by sheer coincidence commissioner Gary Bettman was at the game -- but the irony was that in 1997, Colorado winger Mike Keane and Colorado coach Marc Crawford were justifiably disdainful of the Detroit Red Wings for waiting to seek justice from Claude Lemieux until the game was in Joe Louis Arena. And both Keane and Crawford were on the Vancouver bench Monday night, with Crawford smirking as Colorado coach Tony Granato -- mirroring Crawford's screaming at Scotty Bowman during the 1997 conference finals -- hollered at Crawford while Moore was down on the ice.
There is going to be more to this story as it unfolds, both from the league perspective and from Moore's outlook and prognosis.
But Bertuzzi should be done with hockey for a long, long time.
