Major Acid's E-Rag
It Strikes Me...
The Bertuzzi Fallout
I no longer remember who originally said it, but this is my favourite
hockey joke: “I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out.”
Think about that while you think about the Canadian media’s hysterical
response to the Bertuzzi attack on Moore. Hysterical is not overstating
the case. The Globe and Mail gave the attack the full headline
treatment, front page, lead story. Beside it – one column, secondary
headline – Sheila Copps’ claim that Tony Valeri’s people sabotaged her
run for the Liberal nomination. Yes, politics is more important than
hockey, even in Canada.
I’d guess that Copps has a slight lead in name recognition across
Canada, though slight is the word, and probably weighted heavily to
older Canadians. Bertuzzi comes second. Valeri who? Moore who?
Moore suddenly became closer to a household name by leveling “marquee”
player Naslund a few weeks ago, but then not having the good grace to
get beaten up by an enforcer, though Moore did have a go round with a
Vancouver player in the rematch. He won and then decided to play hockey
for the rest of the game. By the time Bertuzzi got to Moore, the hit on
Naslund wasn’t the issue. Bertuzzi apparently couldn’t believe Moore
would just skate away rather than once again square off against Bertuzzi
and friends.
The nerve!
In contrast, Copps couldn’t believe that Valeri, who virtually no
Canadian knows even though he’s a federal Cabinet minister, would do
what Moore wouldn’t – go toe to toe with her in a political fist fight.
I suspect Copps would like us to think of her as a political version of
Moore – an innocent victim of a sneak attack. A few months ago she also
took a run at a marquee player. Unlike Naslund flattened by Moore,
Martin barely noticed Copps’ body check. What he did notice was Copps’
failure to play by the unwritten rules. She refused to go quietly into
that good political night.
Shiela, go home. You are no longer wanted on this voyage.
Copps won’t go home, of course. She’ll continue to embarrass herself,
at least until the next election. It’s too bad there isn’t a Political
Hockey League disciplinary committee to suspend her, but that’s one
difference between politics and hockey.
The rules in hockey are written down.
Because there are rules, Bertuzzi will pay, and he will pay big time:
suspended for the season, possibly longer; at least $500,000 USD in lost
wages; and very likely charges laid by the police.
If he is charged, the outcome is uncertain even though the whole
incident is on tape. For the sheer intellectual fun of it, I would love
to be the Crown Attorney. I would argue that Moore’s injury is the
result of a criminal conspiracy; that there is clear evidence of this in
the pattern of attempted assaults preceding Bertuzzi’s attack; that the
assault was discussed, planned, anticipated for weeks following Moore’s
hit on Naslund; that Bertuzzi and other Vancouver players were in on the
conspiracy and all should be charged.
I’m not a crown attorney, though, and maybe hockey should be glad of
that. I am, in fact, an occasional fan of the game. I am, in fact, an
occasional fan of fighting in hockey. It’s not easy to throw punches on
skates; it requires balance, timing and a willingness to take
punishment. Fighting entertains the fans, something the NHL is stupidly
trying to ignore. You can blame political correctness for that.
Flowing, perhaps, from its continuing attempts to penetrate ever further
into the money-rich US market, the NHL seems to have bought into the
belief that “violence” needs to be removed from the game. If only
hockey could be played without stick incidents, without body checks,
without harsh language, the big American market would magically be
enthralled.
If that were true, Americans would be huge soccer fans, where the chief
entertainment is mass drunken singing, or a world power in cricket in
which games last days and the players routinely break for tea.
Hockey is by its nature politically incorrect. It is grown men playing
a physically rough game in which tempers sometimes flare. It used to be
a game that allowed those flare-ups, if the players were inclined, to be
resolved quickly, after which combatants would go to the penalty box and
the fastest game on earth would resume.
Today hockey is hopelessly mired in the emotional dead zone of political
correctness, no longer hockey, not yet cricket on ice. In trying to
appeal to political correctness, the NHL has crippled hockey, and for no
gain. The politically correct legions don’t just want violence removed
from hockey, they want hockey, like they want boxing, gone.
And no, in case you’re thinking it, I don’t say this as a backhanded way
to support Todd Bertuzzi. He attacked Moore from behind, badly injured
the man, and deserves what he gets no matter how many probably quite
genuine tears of remorse he sheds.
My problem is the fans don’t deserve the fallout, the damage this
incident does to the game, aided and abetted by media and media savvy
politically correct commentators unable, or unwilling, to distinguish
between a fair consensual fight and assault.
I like hockey. I like its demand for execution under pressure. I like
its speed. I like its toughness. And I like it because every once in a
while, in the middle of a game, a boxing match breaks out.
