E-Mail This Article to a Friend Get the truly rough stuff out of hockey BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Call me naive. Call me out of touch. Call me square, or call me a harebrained idiot, but I’m here to say that I’m getting sick and tired of the senseless violence and fighting in hockey. I wish it would be banished from the sport so that incidents like Tuesday’s mauling of Colorado Avalanche centerman Steve Moore would not and could not happen. For those who missed it, toward the end of a 9-2 Canucks loss, Vancouver forward Todd Bertuzzi sucker-punched and then pushed down onto the ice the 25-year-old rookie, giving Moore a solid concussion and two cracked vertebrae in his neck. Moore still lies in a Vancouver hospital, and his inaugural professional season is over — just a month before the NHL playoffs were set to open with the Avalanche touted as one of several favorites to capture the Stanley Cup.

Bertuzzi was handed his punishment on Thursday, and it was, for now, justified: suspension for the rest of the regular season (12 games), plus the entire playoffs, which at most could last another 28 games for the playoff-bound Canucks. His punishment will be reviewed upon the onset of this fall’s (presumed) resumption of the NHL season, and his ultimate sentence will likely be determined by the nature of Moore’s recuperation and ability to play again.

Bertuzzi, a 29-year-old veteran of nearly 10 full seasons in the league, offered up a tearful apology to Moore on Thursday, but as always, the damage had already been done. And significant blame lies with the NHL, which has continued over the years to tacitly condone fighting and violence in its sport. For many fans, pugilism and physical play are part of the game. But many others believe it has no place in this otherwise magnificent sport, and incidents like the Bertuzzi attack (and the Marty McSorley stick-swinging incident of four years ago) routinely give the game of hockey a proverbial black eye.

I understand that physical play has always been a standard component of hockey, and the "Big Bad Bruins" of the late ’60s and early ’70s endeared themselves to their fans with their heavy-handed style of play. That team, along with the "Broad Street Bullies" Flyers of a few years later, were known for their bone-crunching hits and their readiness to drop the gloves at the drop of a, well, glove. And though teams of goons are difficult to find in this day and age (although the Maple Leafs — Leaves? — come close), there are still a huge number of professional hockey "players" who are brought on to NHL rosters solely to serve as "enforcers" or "instigators." You loathe those types of guys if they’re playing on the opposing team, but when they’re on your team — well, they somehow become lovable. A prime local example was Chris Nilan, who was an interminable pest and thorn in the side of Bruins fans for his oh-so-many years of playing for the hated Canadiens, but when he was picked up as a free agent by the B’s in 1990, all was (somewhat) forgiven. To the Hub’s hockey fans, the former most-wanted Habitant was now their rapscallion, and his unique "skills" were regarded in a completely different manner. That scamp! Look at that nice hit he put on Gretzky!

But physical play as a simplistic concept is not what brought about the Dale Hunter incident in 1993, or McSorley’s swing at Donald Brashear’s head in 2000, or this past week’s debacle in Vancouver. Rather, the blame lies in the rampantly violent atmosphere — where cheap shots are run-of-the-mill, tough guys are expected to goad their opponents into retaliatory action or fights (often unfairly earning time in the box for the respondent rather than the instigator), and hand-to-hand combat is a fundamental part of the game (and for many fans the most exciting part of any hockey contest).

But why does the NHL allow this ugly aspect of the game to flourish? The NFL sure doesn’t; if you fight, you’re thrown out of the game, and pro football certainly offers up more opportunities for hard feelings and cheap shots than the free-flowing game of hockey does. The NBA? Fisticuffs in the paint mean a double-technical and automatic ejection. Baseball? Bench-clearing brawls have long been dealt with swiftly and seriously by the commissioner’s office, and suspensions are routinely handed down whenever anything other than a baseball is hit by a player. Even soccer, with its concept of yellow and red cards (yellow for a warning, red for the second yellow or automatic ejection), has become an effective means of discouraging players from going after each other with their dukes up.

Similarly, international hockey doesn’t put up with the BS either, and that’s why the Olympic tournament is so enjoyable for purist fans. Players simply don’t fight, because doing so not only warrants an automatic ejection, but gets you suspended for the subsequent game as well (a standard procedure in professional soccer, too). The lords of the rings determined that fighting has no place in hockey or any other Olympic sport (except, presumably, boxing), and stiff penalties serve as a deterrent. When the sport’s grand pooh-bahs put such disincentives in place, it usually means that the players will abide by them. But if those rules of conduct are not in place ...

Those who love the motion picture Caddyshack most likely also enjoy the Paul Newman vehicle Slap Shot, since both are uproarious sports comedies that boast memorable characters and lines. Slap Shot is about a minor-league hockey team, led by player/coach Reggie Dunlop (Newman), that is about to be sold and disbanded, so the team goes on one last grand ride en route to the league-championship game. I loved the film, just as I love hockey. The only aspect that I didn’t appreciate was Slap Shot’s glorification of fighting and the violence exhibited by the Charlestown Chiefs. It’s all comic-strip brutality to be sure, especially where it concerns the clownish Hanson Brothers, but the film makes it clear that the majority of hockey fans want to see physical play, and if a fight breaks out — well, all the better. The strip-teasing finale makes fun of the whole concept of on-ice pugilism, but much of the style of play represented in the movie is indeed the kind that today’s fans yearn for. And that’s unfortunate.

But sometimes, in real-life games, it can go too far, as evidenced by this past week’s fateful turn of events. Many fans opposed to my point of view will counter that such outrageous incidents and injuries are rare in the NHL, and that the game would be unduly affected if the inherent physical nature of the sport were removed. That may be the case, but frankly, I don’t think that fighting per se belongs in the game, despite the fact that the combatants wear so much padding and shields (and are on skates, for God’s sake) that no one gets seriously hurt anyhow. Still, if you saw the replay of Moore hitting the ice face-first last week, then you realize that such devastating injuries can really occur only in the NHL. They won’t happen on the lush grass or even the dusty infields of our major-league ballparks; they won’t happen even on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field; and they’re unlikely to happen on the hardwood courts of the NBA’s arenas. But on the ice or hitting the boards (à la Travis Roy), when on unwieldy skates — well, that’s why hockey has more incidences of concussion than any other sport except boxing, and therein lies the unfortunate similarity.

We already have a sport that allows fighting, and more than one, if you count professional wrestling and ultimate fighting. That should be enough for some people. When you decide that two disparate sports can be combined and not expect people to suffer serious injury, then you’re fooling yourself. And if you believe that fighting and goon-mongering and enforcing have a place in the elegant and fluid game of hockey, well, then you’re going to games for the wrong reasons.

I believe strongly in the spirit of sportsmanship, and too often the rules of proper conduct go out the window when it comes to hockey. Think of all the times you hear about parents and coaches going overboard at games and attacking other coaches or referees ... is it any coincidence that this happens most commonly at hockey games, where freewheeling violence is otherwise endorsed and condoned?

One can only imagine what the NHL would be like if fighting were outlawed, as it is on the international stage and in other professional sports. Think about the splendor that would remain, and the ugliness that would be eradicated. That could be accomplished without losing any of the game’s meaningful attributes. It would put a lot of one-talent-only brutes out of work, and it would leave only honest-to-goodness goaltenders, defensemen, passers, and goal-scorers to play this grand game.

For Steve Moore, it’s too late to consider that, but for the future — and the good — of the NHL, it just might be time to start.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com