McSorley takes a bullet for the NHL!

The NHL did last week what it does best when confronted with accusations that the league tries to outdo the WWF in promoting mayhem as good, clean family-values entertainment: nothing.

Yes, a judge in British Columbia last week found Marty McSorley guilty of assault for nearly divorcing Donald Breashear from his head, and yes, Marty McSorley likely will never play in another professional hockey game. But he'll also have to serve no jail time or pay any other reparations, unless Brashear sues him in civil court.

Meanwhile, the NHL wipes its hands, continues with the 2000-2001 season as usual, and waits for the next bludgeoning to take place. All part of the game.

And, of course, players, coaches and officials in hockey leagues all over North America, including the USHL, will decide, consciously or not, that it's all part of their game, too. Because, what the hell, if they play it that way in Detroit, we can play it that way in Des Moines.

Disgusting. The NHL should have said on the spot, "Hey! We've been wrong all these decades! Remember what Connie Smythe said about beating them in the alley? Well, Connie Smythe was a lunatic, and we're going to put a stop to that spit right now!"

Instead, apologists for the league such as ESPN analyst Barry Melrose took the opportunity to stand right up for the continuation of road rage on skates. "For the first time," Melrose writes on ESPN's website, "the legal system enters into sports, grabs an athlete for doing something that has happened many times before, takes him to court and finds him guilty of assault with a weapon."

Melrose goes on to say, "I don't think there's a place for law in sports."

Well, gee, Barry, d'ya think the players oughta be packing heat, then? I mean, look what happens out on the street. If one dude doesn't like another dude crashing his dome in, dude comes back with a Glock and perforates his assailant. But this is only hockey. So last February 21st, after Brashear of the Vancouver Canucks crashed McSorley's dome in with his fists earlier in a game against McSorley's visiting Boston Bruins, all McSorley did was come back on the ice when the game was nearly over, stalk Brashear from behind and swing his stick at the Canuck player's head.

An accident, claimed McSorley. An accident, parroted Melrose.

Some accident. If you haven't seen the video clip McSorley swung his stick like Sammy Sosa swinging at a high fastball, and connected with the right side of Brashear's head just below his helmet. Brashear hit the ice hard, his helmet flew off, and his bare head slammed into the ice with a sickening thud.

The incident was the first to be prosecuted since an Ontario court (what is it with these Canadians!) decided in 1988 that Dino Ciccarelli of the former Minnesota North Stars had intentionally used his stick to pop Toronto's Luke Richardson during a game. The judge sentenced Ciccarelli to a one-day penalty in the provincial sin bin and fined him a whopping thousand bones, which today wouldn't even pay for a nosebleed seat to a regular-season NHL game.

McSorley won't have to pay even that. Maybe not even a day of community service. And neither will the next goon. Or the next, or the next.

And the NHL wonders why no one outside its rinks' friendly confines takes the sport of hockey seriously.

Yeah, yeah, we've heard the argument before: We won't stand for incidents like this. But bare-knuckle fighting ¯ which civil authorities banned as a sport 100 years ago is OK, because it relieves the tension and prevents more incidents like this.

Uhhhhh, didn't this incident stem from a legitimate, it's-OK-to-rumble fight?

Suppose the first time they'd punched each other out during that game on February 21, Donald Brashear and Marty McSorley were tossed out of the contest? Suppose they had to sit out the next five games, too, and the next match between the Bruins and Canucks? If so, maybe Bruins Coach Pat Burns wouldn't have sent Marty McSorley back onto the ice with the game nearly over, and maybe McSorley wouldn't have played Paul Bunyan with Donald Brashear's head.

We'll never know. But we do know this. The NHL had, as they say, a golden opportunity to do the right thing, and the league blew it. But hey, fans, don't worry. You can bet that another shot will come its way faster than fists fly at an NHL arena near you.

By Ira Lacher
Ira Lacher has covered pro hockey, including the NHL, for a variety of newspapers and magazines throughout North America