NHL's latest problem: Foul-weather critics
Everybody wants a piece of Todd Bertuzzi, and understandably so. Thankfully, the NHL has realized that they have a public-relations nightmare on their hands, and they have opted to do the right thing by suspending Bertuzzi for the rest of the season and the playoffs. It's not the lifetime suspension that I believe Bertuzzi's attack on Steve Moore deserves, but it's as close as the suits in the NHL offices dare come. If nothing else, the length of Bertuzzi's suspension will provide an opportunity for emotions to cool- and the prognosis for Moore's future to be better understood.
ESPN.com's Ray Ratto asks a good question, one that I would be asking myself if he hadn't beaten me to it. On March 5th, Philadelphia and Ottawa set a record for most penalty minutes in an NHL game. It was your basic brawl-a-thon, but where was the public outrage then? Of course, no one was seriously injured injured in the way Colorado's Steve Moore was, but was this just another case of boys being boys?
And yet, nobody seemed to mind last Friday night when the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers engaged in what only can be called a serial brawl.
The two teams, both vying for the illusory benefits of a better seed among Eastern Conference teams in the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs, broke the league record for penalty minutes with 416. They were so relentlessly cranky that it took the referees, Marc Joannette and Dan Marouelli, a good 90 minutes just to get the penalties squared away for the box scores.
But that's just the box score -- 6½ inches of felonious intent.
What really happened here were all-out bar fights with 1:45 left to play, 1:42 left to play, 1:39 left to play, 1:15 left to play, and 1:13 left to play. Sixteen players were ejected, and ...
... and everyone was cool with it. Hockey players being hockey players.
Yeah, right. More of the same, same as it ever was. It was this way in the 70s, the 80s, and it's the same today. At this point, I'm firmly convinced that nothing will change until a player dies at the hand of one team's enforcer. And people wonder why I fear for the future of the game of hockey?
