The NHL / Julie Cart : City of Boston Weighs Arrest as Punishment for Violence on Ice

The Boston city council is apparently following through on Mayor Raymond Flynn’s threat to crack down on violence in sports.

The city council this week reviewed a proposal by its president, Bruce C. Bolling, that would require the arrest of professional athletes who commit violent acts during sporting events.

“The big problem is hockey,” Bolling said. “(There) seems to be a fight in just about every game--sometimes several. Someone is checked hard, and before you know it, there is a fight. That sort of thing is celebrated.

“We just don’t want that kind of deviant behavior to be inculcated as part of the game. That’s not the way the game was intended. It’s not the way hockey is played in Europe. It’s just not part of the game.”

This proposal came after Flynn attended the Nov. 20 game between the Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens in which 114 penalty minutes and $14,000 in fines were handed out.

There have been six fights in Boston Garden since Flynn called for the city council to consider an ordinance. Five of the fights involved the Bruins and one came in a National Basketball Assn. game between the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers.

Boston police already have the authority to arrest professional athletes for assault and battery. The proposed ordinance would require police to make such arrests.

They love their hockey in Canada. A television series entitled “He Shoots, He Scores” has been a staple in most homes this season. The show follows a fictitious hockey team and pretends to give an insider’s look into the sport.

The Canadian public is interested but discerning, however. A made-for-television movie, “The Last Season,” which aired in Canada last week, was panned. “Ambitious hockey saga fails to score” read a headline in a Toronto newspaper. From the sound of it, there is little that was subtle about the program.

The protagonist is NHL “enforcer” Felix Batterinski. One reviewer characterizes Batterinski, a 12-year veteran of the Philadelphia Flyers, as “a sullen brute who has forged a major league hockey career with his fists,” and “a victim of the professional sports machine that utilized his personal anguish for profit.”

The movie outlines how Batterinski--played by Booth Savage--was encouraged to fight by his junior hockey coach, “Teddy (Toilet) Bowles, “(who) told Batterinski to cultivate his ‘strength’ as a fighter, rather than simply develop his abundant hockey skills.”

Although the plot was criticized, the actors--especially Neil Munro as “the obnoxious journalist”--were praised. In summation, the newspaper said: “The Last Season is an ambitious production and with more work on the script it might have been more successful. At its worst, it’s more interesting and better made than a lot of dressed-up potboilers that come to us from south of the border.”

Take that, Hollywood.

Add Hollywood: Actor Richard Dean Anderson, star of the television series “MacGyver,” realized a lifelong dream when he suited up recently with the New York Rangers.

Anderson, who had always dreamed of playing in the NHL, participated in the pregame warmup before to a Ranger game against the Hartford Whalers at Madison Square Garden.

The 36-year-old Minneapolis native, who currently skates in a celebrity league in Hollywood, had played seriously as a youth and aspired to make the NHL before suffering two broken arms at the age of 16, forcing him to give up the sport in favor of an acting career.

An avid Calgary Flame fan, Anderson traveled with the team for part of the 1986 playoffs and commuted among Los Angeles, Calgary and Montreal during the Stanley Cup final between the Canadiens and the Flames.

NHL Notes

Petr Klima, the highly regarded Czechoslovakian defector, has scored only 2 goals in his last 18 games with the Detroit Red Wings. He blames his slump on Detroit Coach Jacques Demers. “It’s the worst slump of my career,” Klima said. “And the reason is the coach is yelling at me. I hate that. No coach has ever yelled at me.” Demers has heard it all before. “When he scored 12 goals in his first 14 games he said I was the best coach he ever had,” Demers said. . . . Pittsburgh center Mario Lemieux will have his cast removed today, and his injured right knee will be examined by team doctors. Lemieux was the Penguins’ leading scorer and the NHL’s second-leading scorer when he was injured Dec. 20 as his skate caught in a rut on the ice at Pittsburgh. He is expected to miss at least one more week.