I was recently watching the TSN year in review show. The number two story of the year was the Todd Bertuzi attack on Steve Moore. While players everywhere whined that the courts should let the NHL handle the issue the world watched the NHL dish out a slap on the wrist to Bertuzi. First off I know that it was perhaps the harshest suspension that the NHL has ever handed out but that does not mean that in comparison to the act it wasn't a slap on the wrist. Second, Moore may never play again due to the actions of Bertuzi. Meanwhile Bertuzi is petitioning the league for reinstatement. Here is what I think ...
Todd Bertuzi deserved to be charged criminally. I have mixed emotions concerning the plea bargin. On the one side I'm glad the Crown did not try and grandstand for the media and seek some ludicrous penalty but on the other I am confident that if I had attacked a person on the street and put them in the hospital with two cracked vertibrae, a concussion and the possibility that that person may lose their livelyhood, I would have received far more than eighty hours community service and NO criminal record after pleading GUILTY. So in the end I think the Canadian justice system dropped the ball because he is a star player in Vancouver.
I also think that the NHL dropped the ball because Bertuzi is a star player. He visciously attacked another player on the ice with the most likely result being that Moore's career is over. Here is what I would have given Bertuzi, an indefinate suspension plus fifteen games. What I mean by this is that Bertuzi would sit out as long as Moore was unable to play hockey at the NHL level. Once Moore returned then Bertuzi would sit out an additional fifteen games due to the violent and heinous nature of his attack. Therefore if Moore was out a year, so would Bertuzi, if Moore was never able to play again due to the actions of Bertuzi then Bertuzi would never play again. To me that is only fair.
Hockey is to the point that I can't bring myself to watch it, unless its the World Junior tournament which is currently taking place, Go CANADA! Half of any given team is filled with thugs who have no real ability other than their ability to fight. Last I checked fighting was as illegal in hockey as was slashing and tripping. Why treat it any differently? There is no sense to the argument that players are able to police themselves through fighting because 90% of the fights in hockey have nothing to do with infractions. Moore's hit was legal for that he lost his career. That makes sense. Also last I looked, the player that he hit - Naslund - finished out the year on the ice unlike Moore.
Now this atmosphere of violence which reigns on the ice has infected those off the ice. To those who defend Bertuzi and his right to be reinstated, I can't fathom your logic, especially when I attend a minor league hockey game. My cousin has a 13 year old son who began playing hockey when he was 4. While I have not attended anything near even half of his games, those that I was at sickened me. Not so much the players (who at the age of 8 are swinging their sticks like baseball bats and picking fights which is wrong on so many levels) but with the parents in the stands who are ordering their kids to take cheap shots at other kids or verbally assaulting and threatening the referees. The atmosphere surrounding hockey today is so toxic that when I do have kids, I will not let them play hockey like I did as a kid for 12 years.
No, Bertuzi should not be allowed to play until Moore hits the ice in an NHL game. Not only for the fact that he perpetrated a violent act but also because of the tragically negative message it sends to the worlds children who play hockey: Act like an animal while your on the ice because humanity no longer exists there. The worst that will happen is that you end one persons career and dream while you can continue on your own.
What a great message to send to our children.
Sincerely;
Vespasian
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