chimes in on the Bertuzzi cheap shot: “the NHL has managed, over time, to take the world’s fastest, most exciting skill game and turn itself into a minor league ignored by all but the most avid fans, lumped in with wrestling in the popular imagination.”

the Vancouver Canucks center has been suspended for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs, and the league reserves the right to revisit the punishment at a later date. The Canucks were also fined a quarter mil of real money (i.e., not Canadian pesos).

I still don’t believe, however, that the NHL realizes how big a deal this whole thing is though. Hockey is being ruined by the fact that hockey men are running the show. No matter what soothing words were uttered today, hockey people will line up to insist that this was an “isolated event” that “doesn’t reflect on the game itself.” I call bullshit, frankly.

Hockey is becoming a joke – always has been in 50% of NHL markets – and the fundamental problems can’t be addressed on an ad-hoc basis. I would ban fighting altogether and have an eye-in-the-sky (with video backup) to give immediate one-game bans for any – even incidental – contact to the face with a stick or any fist-to-player contact outside the bounds of a hockey play in progress. Re-offenders would have their penalty progressively increased. Given current NHL practice this would seem very draconian at first, but after a month or so the game would be quicker and way more fun for fans, both experts and casual.