Volume 5
Issue # 6

March 12, 2004

"Punishment for the punch: The Bertuzzi-Moore saga"

I’m sure you’ve all heard the story. It was the punch heard round the world. Todd Bertuzzi, resident enforcer for the Vancouver Canucks, sucker punches Steve Moore of the Colorado Avalanche, resulting in a dog pile of players, a lot of blood and two fractured vertabrae. At time of press, Moore is projected to be on his way to recovery, possibly returning to the ice in four weeks, but the effects of the concussion may not fully present themselves for some time.

Bertuzzi was suspended until at least the end of the year (including the post-season) this past Thursday. When Sportsnet.ca interviewed a number of NHL players, they “applauded the suspension handed to Vancouver Canucks star Todd Bertuzzi on Thursday but doubted it would deter further violence on the ice.” It is an inherent part of the game that players will get physical, bones will be broken, and blood will be shed. Players can easily get caught up in a moment of fury or retaliation, and whether the intent to injure is present or not, injuries happen. The Canucks (as a franchise) also received a $250,000 USD fine for not doing enough to prevent such an incident. It may not be unreasonable to consider that Bertuzzi may have been gunning for Moore to extract revenge for Moore’s attack on Marcus Naslund, the Canucks’ captain, earlier this year. It would be an outrage, however, to say that there was intent to injure or intent to end Moore’s season (and possibly career). This should not reflect on Marc Crawford’s coaching or the Canuck organization.

That being said, Bertuzzi’s fate for next season (should there be one) hangs in the balance, contingent on the Steve Moore’s prognosis; the league will not decide whether Big Bert can play next year until they are certain of the extent of the Steve Moore’s injuries. Maybe he will fully recover, but perhaps the post-concussion effects will be so profound as to end any of Moore’s chances of returning to NHL ice again. We can never be sure when Moore’s vertabrae were fractured. It could have been a result of Bertuzzi’s punch, Moore’s falling face first into the ice, or the ensuing dog pile of both Canucks and Avalanche players.

Some have argued that since the Avalanche lose a player for the rest of the year, so should the Canucks. An eye for an eye, as it were, and the punishment should fit the crime. However, I think it would be unfair to compare Bertuzzi and Moore and conclude they are players of the same caliber and of the same worth to their respective teams. Bertuzzi plays a very significant role for the Canucks and I’d argue that Moore plays a much lesser role on a team of players destined for the Hall of Fame (Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Rob Blake, among others).

Above and beyond all of this, criminal charges against Bertuzzi for his “vicious attack” have been considered by the Vancouver Police Department (VPD). It will be investigated like a “normal” assault case, they say. After the heavy punishment issued by the NHL, the league hoped that the VPD can be satisfied that the league can govern itself. I was interested to see what the general population thought on this topic, so I posted an unofficial poll on RevScene.net, an online discussion forum comprised mostly of import enthusiasts of the Greater Vancouver area. As such, this sample is not random, and likely contains the opinions of mostly male high school or university students. That being said, here is what I found when I asked them, “Should Todd Bertuzzi face criminal charges?”

Of the 33 people who responded to the poll, an overwhelming 20 of them, or approximately 60%, answered “definitely no” with another 3 respondents, or approximately 9%, answering “mostly no.” This accounts for more than two-thirds of the sample. I received such comments as:

That sucker punch is no different than any other sucker punch you see around the league on any given day. The only difference was Steve Moore breaking his neck as he went down. No one can conclusively say at what point his neck was broken. It could have been any point from Bertuzzi punching him to falling down on his face and subsequently having a "dogpile" on top of him. Sure it was unfortunate, but it could of easily been Naslund two weeks ago who broke his neck. So what's next? You can define any "big hit" or bloody fight leading to an injury as "outside the confines of real hockey"? It was an unfortunate incident. That's all it was. [2dru4u]

Definitely no. What goes on on the ice should stay on the ice. What he did was inexcusable but it should stay within the realms of hockey. [Ronin]

I was interested to see if the result of the poll was statistically significant. I offered five possible responses to the question: definitely no, mostly no, neutral, mostly yes, and definitely yes. I then assigned numerical values to these responses, with 1 being definitely no and 5 being definitely yes. I found the mean (or average value) to be 2.09, or roughly “mostly no.” The standard deviation was 1.55, with the standard error of the mean being 0.27. Making use of my statistics learnings, I decided to use a two-tailed t-test, null hypothesis being the mean = 3.0 (or neutral) and I found the result of this poll to be statistically significant at the alpha=0.01 level. In other words, there is significant evidence (with 99% certainty) that the general public (as represented by this sample of Revscene.net users) believes Todd Bertuzzi should not face any criminal charges for his actions Monday night. I would have to agree.

As for the Canucks organization, I think their playoff chances are now slim at best. Much of what Bertuzzi does for the team does not show up on the stats sheet. Sure, he gets his share of goals, assists and penalty minutes, but the key role that Bertuzzi plays for the team is being the immovable obstructing object in front of the opposing team’s netminder. In layman’s terms, Bertuzzi’s job is to a pain in the ass and by God, he sure is good at it. And for this reason, Bertuzzi has very few (if any) fans outside of the Greater Vancouver area.

Unfortunately for him, for the Canucks, and for this hockey community, Monday night he went beyond the call of duty and as a result, has jeopardized the Canucks’ first legitimate shot at the Stanley Cup since the days of Pavel Bure and the 1994 playoff run that ended with the New York Rangers capturing the Cup; The Canucks have never won the Stanley Cup in their history, but their predecessor – The Vancouver Millionaires – to my knowledge, have won the Cup once many moons ago. With the acquisition of such players as Geoff Sanderson and Martin Rucinsky at the trade deadline, Brian Burke and the rest of the Canucks organization hope they can still have a solid playoff run.
So do the rest of us.

Go Canucks Go!

UPDATE:
Since I wrote this piece, the Canucks managed to get an overtime win over the Oilers today, with contributions from both of the significant newcomers, Martin Rucinsky and a game-winning goal from Geoff Sanderson. Marcus Naslund assisted both goals. Maybe the Canucks still have a shot after all, but the win tonight was ONLY against the Oilers, after all. Also, I have kept my poll on Revscene.net running, and at time of press, I have a total of 54 responses, with the following breakdown: 6 Definitely Yes, 5 Mostly Yes, 1 Neutral, 5 Mostly No, and 37 Definitely No. The Definitely No's now make up over 68% of those polled, so clearly, the result is still statistically significant, but I don't want to bother going through all that work again.