Only Victim Is Guy in Hospital

Brian Burke insists Todd Bertuzzi is a victim of ignorant and biased media reports.

Burke, the Vancouver Canuck general manager, also insists Bertuzzi and Coach Marc Crawford are victims of hasty and short-sighted justice.

Canuck fans say they’re victims of a league “that doesn’t want us to have the Cup,” Lisa Mayea of Ladysmith, Canada, told the Canadian Press during a pro-Bertuzzi demonstration in Vancouver.

Even CBC broadcaster Don Cherry claimed he has been victimized by the Bertuzzi incident.

The only person who hasn’t courted public opinion is the only true victim here -- Steve Moore, who was moved to Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo., on Saturday to continue his recovery from two fractured vertebrae, a concussion and facial cuts and bruises.

No one will accept responsibility for the results of Bertuzzi’s sucker punch to the head of Moore eight days ago, which sent the Colorado rookie crashing to the ice face-first. Bertuzzi piled on him and would have punched Moore again if Colorado’s Andrei Nikolishin hadn’t thrown himself atop them.

Burke claimed in a news conference last week that the pileup was the most likely cause of Moore’s injuries. He also questioned whether Moore was injured badly enough to miss the rest of the season, as the Avalanche has said.

Amazing, isn’t it, that while Burke performed his duties with the Canucks he also found time to attend medical school and become qualified to make that diagnosis. It’s great too that he can predict when players will recover from concussions. Ask the Kings about the foolishness of putting a timetable on that.

Bertuzzi is an “outstanding person ... despite a few seconds on the ice during which you might think he acted inappropriately,” said Burke, formerly the NHL’s chief disciplinarian. He added that “a doctor was quoted here” as saying it was impossible to ascertain when the neck injury occurred. Perhaps, but if Bertuzzi hadn’t punched Moore in the first place, Moore wouldn’t have suffered any injury.

Burke also said a Canuck team doctor estimated Moore might recover in four to six weeks. That doctor, of course, examined Moore or saw the player’s X-rays. Oh, he didn’t? A minor detail for the righteously indignant.

Kent Gilchrist, a columnist for the Vancouver Province, said the person to blame was Avalanche Coach Tony Granato. Gilchrist’s tortured reasoning: Moore had already done his duty by fighting Matt Cooke in the first period, so Granato should have kept Moore out of the game in the late stages in anticipation the Canucks might try something.

“Granato had to know that continuing to play Moore as the Avs’ lead increased could only exacerbate the situation,” Gilchrist wrote. “Isn’t part of a coach’s job in the NHL to try and protect his player? Apparently not.... If the target of their frustration had been removed, there would have been no issue.”

And what of Crawford’s duty to protect the Canucks? He apparently didn’t urge Bertuzzi to remain calm. And why did Crawford continue to play Bertuzzi -- who averages 21 minutes a game -- with eight minutes left in what became a 9-2 loss, and with the Canucks facing three games in the next five nights?

No one comes out of this looking good. Least of all the NHL, which last week got the kind of mainstream exposure it has always wanted, but for all the wrong reasons.

From ABC to CNN, from Fox to Katie Couric and Matt Lauer tsk-tsking on NBC’s “Today” show, hockey took its lumps. Cherry, the outspoken CBC commentator, said Saturday that critics have “an agenda to get hockey, get [NHL Commissioner Gary] Bettman, get me, get hockey people. The media doesn’t care about Moore one bit.”

Cherry had been accused the previous week by the Canada Safety Council of condoning fighting and violence in hockey. He said of Bertuzzi’s punch, “If you have a beef with somebody, and you want to do something, it’s face to face. Face to face. You settle it that way. You don’t sucker punch, ever, from behind. Do it face to face. That’s the Canadian way.”

Warms your heart, doesn’t it?

Bertuzzi should have been suspended for a year. Leaving it at the rest of the season and the playoffs and requiring him to apply to Bettman for reinstatement means he might miss as few as 17 games, the last 13 of the season and four playoff games. And although playoff games are more important and produce more revenue, that would not be punishment enough.

Bertuzzi undoubtedly was sincere when he apologized to Moore last week, though his claim he wasn’t trying to hurt Moore rings hollow. Blindside punching isn’t an accepted way of showing affection. Bertuzzi was trying to inflict some kind of damage, though not as much as what resulted.

The key point is there are consequences to every action. It doesn’t matter if Bertuzzi didn’t mean to cause havoc and hurt Moore. He did. He’s not a victim. The victims are Moore, the game of hockey and the truth.

Fighting Against Fighting

The American College of Sports Medicine, which researches the scientific and medical aspects of sports and exercise, used the Bertuzzi incident as a platform to urge the NHL to eliminate fighting and promote sportsmanship and safe play at all levels of the game.

“The NHL, I think, panders to a small minority of people who think violence and brutality are part of the game,” said Dr. Andrew Pipe of the Ottawa Heart Institute, who is president of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports. “It’s not working. Attendance is falling in most major U.S. markets, and the reality is the NHL, in North America -- except in Canada -- is in big trouble. It’s been marginalized.

“The idea that this is somehow selling the game is what I call a zombie concept. It keeps rising from the dead. Every time an incident like this happens, they try to defend it.... There’s something pretty sick about what’s going on in our sport.”

Michael Bracko of Calgary, director of the Institute for Hockey Research and an instructor at hockey clinics, suggested a ban on all blows to the head.

“If the NHL or other organizations within the NHL told referees there’s no lenience within the rules, it would result in more entertaining games and healthier games,” he said. “And it would have a good influence as far as our youth watching those games.

“The NHL and the players’ association should look at this as a health and safety issue.”

Pipe said the NHL has been defensive when discussing a ban on fighting. “They represent the status quo,” he said. “Those of us involved in the game know it can be electrifying. It’s not necessary for the game to have buffoonery, goonery or thuggery, and that’s what it’s become.”

Would fans object if fighting were banned, or is it so much a part of the game that its removal would change the essence of hockey? Why, then, is playoff hockey so riveting and generally fight-free? There’s no simple answer. But if this incident promotes discussion and results in changes before someone dies, then it has served some purpose.

Slap Shots

Overlooked in the frenzy that followed the Bertuzzi incident was the flurry of last-minute trades Monday and Tuesday.

The Ottawa Senators did well to add defenseman Greg de Vries, which allows them to play a big four of the steady de Vries, power-play point man Wade Redden, hulking Zdeno Chara and the solid Chris Phillips. Todd Simpson can get some minutes against tough teams. It’s a solid core.

The Dallas Stars’ addition of Valeri Bure was surprising. He’s not the gritty type they’ve favored, but he scored 20 goals for the low-scoring Florida Panthers and can be an offensive catalyst. Calgary got immediate results from Marcus Nilson, who scored in each of his first three games since being acquired from Florida for a second-round draft pick, and he might help the Flames stay in the top eight in the West.

The St. Louis Blues’ acquisition of Mike Sillinger from Phoenix for Brent Johnson five days before the deadline also was good, and not only because Sillinger has three goals and five points in six games. He has brought energy and good faceoff skills to a team that needed both, winning 75 of 124 faceoffs (60.5%).

Teemu Selanne, who joined Paul Kariya in Colorado this season to rekindle the chemistry they had as linemates with the Mighty Ducks, might be wondering what Kariya got them into. Selanne not only took a pay cut from $7 million with the Sharks to $5.8 million with the Avalanche, he was a healthy scratch in two games last week, for the first time in his hockey career. Selanne has 14 goals and hasn’t played much with Kariya, who has missed a considerable chunk of the season because of injuries.