Grange on NHL: Drawing the line on justice
Posted March 9, 2012 3:45 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
If we’re honest, we like our sports just a little bit medieval; maybe even with a dose of the Paleolithic thrown in.
Retribution. Feuds. Primal fear. Revenge. Bounties.
Skill is always worth watching. Skill delivered while facing the ticking-bomb pressure of imminent, car-crash quality contact?
That’s compelling television. Hockey played in a foul mood, for example, is breathtaking. Anything else is the NHL All-Star game.
The problem is when the pretense of Old Testament boys-will-be-boys fun tips over into the darker reaches of the soul and fans, leagues and sponsors become complicit in athletes doing bad things to each other.
Athletes are paid, in part, to risk physical harm, but what’s the limit?
That’s what the NFL is dealing with right now after reports that Gregg Williams, as the defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints, supervised a cash incentive program where players were rewarded for — among other things –injuring opponents.
The NFL commissioner’s office is reportedly aghast even as most fans might be forgiven for thinking injuring the quarterback was the whole reason the huge guys ran really fast before they hit him from behind.
Apparently metaphorical gladiatorial combat is fine; dismemberment as a by-product is tolerable.
It’s when it becomes the stated goal that it gets awkward for sponsors. And given that the NFL is facing numerous lawsuits from former players arguing the league didn’t do enough to protect their health while working at their inherently dangerous job, being seen to mitigate the legal risks is important too.
Hockey might be ahead of the NFL in this respect. It’s had its bounty moment and has changed, albeit haltingly, at every step since, its popularity intact.
It’s been eight years and a day since the NHL’s black heart was ripped open for all to see, when Vancouver Canucks forward Todd Bertuzzi chased an unknown Colorado Avalanche forward named Steve Moore around the ice for most of a shift in the third period of a blowout loss before jumping him from behind and raining blows on him as he fell.
It was deemed in retribution for a check to the head by Moore on Canucks captain Markus Naslund in a previous meeting.
It was gruesome, to be sure. Blood on the ice and a broken vertebrae and a career-ending concussion for Moore. For Bertuzzi, it’s a moment that will precede him the rest of his life like a facial tattoo.
Even now there are plenty of questions unanswered: Was it a snap decision that went horribly wrong? Was it the product of a ‘hockey code’ organizational culture cultivated by none other than Brian Burke, then the Canucks general manager? Was Bertuzzi simply following orders given by his coach at the time, Marc Crawford?
Why didn’t the NHL do more to head off what seemed to be a potential powder keg, complete with hard-knock veterans like the Canucks’ Brad May (now an analyst with Sportsnet) saying a bounty would be put on Moore?
Those are for the courts to answer if Moore’s lawsuit against Bertuzzi and the Canucks gets heard as scheduled on Sept. 24.
What the principles have to say for themselves may finally be known then. Bertuzzi, enjoying a renaissance of sorts at age 37 with the Detroit Red Wings, sat down with Sportsnet’s Christine Simpson on the eighth anniversary of his infamous attack on Moore and talked around the subject, but not about it.
HOCKEY CENTRAL Saturday: Tune in this Saturday to watch Bertuzzi’s full interview with Christine Simpson on how the former Canuck has re-invented himself with the Red Wings. | Watch: Coming up on HC
Moore has steadfastly remained silent. According to his lawyer he suffered a permanent brain injury and is reportedly seeking $40 million in damages to cover the NHL earnings he never was able to realize and may seek more to reflect how his post-hockey earning potential may have been affected.
Whatever the outcome, it’s hard to imagine those set of circumstances being repeated in today’s NHL.
The interminably drawn-out legal proceedings surrounding the Bertuzzi-Moore incident has had the unique effect of offering hindsight for an event with repercussions that are still unfolding.
When it happened it was deemed outrageous in many quarters, but it’s not like the hockey establishment exiled anyone.
Bertuzzi got hit with a 20-game suspension, but Wayne Gretzky and Hockey Canada put him on the Canadian Olympic team in 2006. Burke gave his former player a two-year, $8-million contract to go play for him in Anaheim, alongside May in 2007.
Crawford kept coaching. There was an element, undoubtedly, who felt that Moore got what he deserved.
But science and common sense seem to be chipping away at the idea that it was just a moment when hockey’s frontier justice system hiccupped.
Concussions are recognized as brain injuries now and there have been enough tragedies across sports that it seems impossible anyone will watch a Rock’em Sock’em hockey video quite the same way.
Sidney Crosby’s manhood has never (seriously) been questioned as he has struggled in his battle to return to the NHL after his concussion.
Interestingly, through that entire episode, there was never an attempt to go eye-for-an-eye on David Steckel, who hit Crosby (accidentally, he’s always claimed), now with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I’m not exactly clear how, short of a special forces operation, the Montreal Canadiens could have exacted revenge on Zdeno Chara for his hit just over a year ago on Max Pacioretty (and again, Chara has always claimed it was unintentional) but the notion of retribution never really caught on.
In the NHL, eight years after Steve Moore suffered a career-ending and life-altering brain injury, there seems to be an acceptance that hockey is a sport, not a blood-feud with its own in-house system of on-ice justice.
Fans, for the most part seem okay with that. Attendance in the markets most steeped in hockey lore remains strong. Television ratings are up and league revenues too, even as blood feuds — or at least ones that draw real blood — seem to be on the wane.
Perhaps there is hope for a kinder, gentler, NFL too.
