Vancouver Canucks general manager Brian Burke is giving a news conference. He isn’t happy with the NHL… and is complaining that the media has kicked “the crap” out of his player.
“Shocked.. shocked at the size of the fine”
“There’s been so little analysis of anyone else’s blame… all you guys have done is crucify my player”.
He claims he accepts responsibility as general manager, and recognizes that Todd went over the line .. then, he goes on to question when Moore’s injury happened – during the cheap shot, or during the pile-on afterwards – and follows up with medical details to imply that the severity of the injury has been exaggerated. Nice move, Brian. That’ll win ya some sympathy.
“We get into a Murphy’s law game, the incident happened, and people say it was premeditated.”
Burke denies that the management had directed Bertuzzi to take out Moore, defends Canucks coach Mark Crawford (who laughed after the hit) and pointed out that there are other players whose job it is …. and that the notion that the Canucks would use a star forward like Bertuzzi for enforcement purposes is ridiculous.
I think the American media is going to have a field day with this.
(The NHL announced this morning, after a 10 minute hearing, that Bertuzzi is out for the remainder of the regular season – 12 games – and the playoffs, and the case will be revisited before he is reinstated. The Canucks recieved a $250,000 fine. Bertuzzi will lose a half million in lost salary.)
Addendum: Hockey guru Liam McGuire reminds us that it wasn’t always this way.
It used to be worse:
Hall-of- Fame defenseman Doug Harvey once speared George Sullivan so severely in a game that Sullivan was administered last rites at the hospital. Rocket Richard broke three sticks over Hal Laycoe, not one, not two, but three and in between he dropped Cliff Thomson, the linesman. Gordie Howe was suspended three times for attempt-to-injure and on numerous other occasions he committed some of the most vile acts imaginable including splitting Brad Parks tongue in half and sucker punching Stan Mikita sending him to the dressing room. The stick fights were out of a movie. People today would not be able to comprehend the NHL pre 1970. Ted Green and Wayne Maki in 1969 during an exhibition game in Ottawa hit themselves in the head with their sticks as hard as they possibly could. Green needed a six hour operation to save his life and has had a permanent plate in his head since that time. Eddie Shack during a game in Toronto in 1967-68, told Larry Zeidel that if he came after him again he was going to hammer him with his stick. Zeidel came after him and Shack swung his stick down on Zeidel’s head as hard as he could. Same thing with Bernie Geoffrion and Ron Murphy, a stick fight the likes of which the fans of the game today would curl up into a little whining ball, rolled up fists to teary eyes crying for their momma’s ..
Point taken. We do have short memories.