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Bertuzzi suspension another black eye for NHL
By Tony Hayes March 15, 2004 |
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In the aftermath of the Todd Bertuzzi suspension for breaking the neck of Steve Moore, the NHL as a league will truly suffer for his move. Right now the league has major issues and is facing a possible labor stoppage in September. The Bertuzzi sucker punch further stains relations across all circles that follow the game. ABC recently did weekend games, something the network doesn't do each week. In some markets the game fared well, but the whole perspective of capturing audiences during NHL sweeps on free national television is to move your product. The publicity of this incident will turn off viewers and the three-game national coverage by ABC Sports this past weekend – Los Angeles at San Jose, Dallas at Detroit, and New Jersey at Philadelphia - will be studied by the teams’ marketing departments and the advertisers to see if in fact the Bertuzzi incident kept fans away when Nielsen ratings are released. Hockey is a fragile sport, considered by most as the No. 4 sport behind baseball, football and basketball - fragile in terms of TV ratings, advertising, promotions, and fan priority for the sports dollar. In Canada, no doubt, the sport is No. 1, but as the NHL knows this sport has to uphold its reputation the best way it can. In an interview with Bertuzzi’s teammate, Trevor Linden of the Vancouver Canucks, he said Saturday night that hockey is a sport that will get past the incident and the game will thrive. Linden is heavily involved with the NHL Players Association and he may know in the back of his mind, with negotiation time looming for this upcoming contract, this maybe a staple with public pressure to do something about fighting in the NHL. Some fans have already began to chime in with those thoughts and have told the league for their sports dollars they had better clean up the game fast and this labor negotiation year with the contract called into question this would be high time to do it. Moore will recover, Bertuzzi may return to the game if there is a next season but it'll be a while when the NHL moves past this one. For all of last week, everybody connected with sports talked about Bertuzzi's sucker punch of Moore. It might be a while until it is forgotten. Hockey is all about fighting, that’s why a good percentage of people will come out to see the fights despite some rules designed to stop it. Most people in the U.S. didn't grow up playing the sport. There are some educational and informational problems with the sport with some people in the U.S. to begin with. People don't really know the nuances, so they don't go out to those hockey matches. There are none of the nuances like basketball, baseball or football. Americans are more accustomed to the other three. There has already been a lot of publicity about the sport not doing well. Some teams have gone bankrupt, scoring is down, and there has been a lot of media on that story. The Bertuzzi incident is the latest with his perfect punch to the face and Moore receiving the broken neck. Later Bertuzzi came out with a tearful apology. Personally, I think the NHL made a mistake in relocating some of these teams to lower North America. Now the NHL wants to downsize markets by contracting teams out. The league is losing its core audience. This will not effect how hockey players do their thing. I know they have cut down some on brawling on the ice. Certain things have been put into place where hockey has frowned on fighting. You can’t take the fight out of these guys and this is what hockey is all about. The players grow up doing this and the fans want it, too. The hockey fans know the nuances so they want to see the fights. The NHL office knows this and that’s why Bertuzzi isn't going to be banned for life. If the NHL really wants to send a message, the league would say, "hey buddy, you’re done, you’re history. Get lost." But Bertuzzi will be back. Tony Hayes does sports commentary right here on this site and hosts Sportstalk. Go to the main page and click the Real Audio archive. |
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