Word: mcsorley
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Last Monday, the old joke about going to a fight and having a hockey game break out came up again, but this time it wasn't so funny. Boston Bruins defenseman Marty McSorley, apparently forgetting he didn't play baseball, raised his stick in the air as if it were a bat and swung at Vancouver Canucks left wing Donald Brashear's head. The egregious (though not entirely unprecedented) whack-heard-round-the-world left Brashear unconscious and twitching on the ice for about 10 minutes, blood streaming from his face. Paramedics had to take Brashear off the ice since...
Maybe these statements hold true in Vancouver. After all, anyone who has ever watched a hockey game knows that no one ever fights or slashes. A more ludicrous idea may never have existed within the realm of pro sports. The NHL has given Marty McSorley the serious penalty he deserves--a suspension for the remainder of the season--costing him about $75,000 in salary. Why must the government intervene where it does not belong and make a statement about the issue...
...notorious old-line thugs lined up against one of its most notorious new-line thugs. The outcome was an attack so sudden and violent that it's impelled police in Vancouver, where the game was played, to consider criminal charges. Meanwhile, on Wednesday the NHL suspended Boston's Marty McSorley for 23 games - until the end of the season - for his hit on Canuck Donald Brashear. The incident raises questions on where to draw the line between sports violence as an occupational hazard and as a criminal act, and what measures professional sports organizations are willing to take to curtail...
...organization has already asked that prosecutors not pursue the case. Meanwhile, referees routinely allow players to fight each other until they are spent. "Whatever the league says, fighting is allowed because it sells tickets," says hockey historian Stan Fischler, whose book "Hockey's Greatest Fighters" profiles both Brashear and McSorley. In Tuesday's game, McSorley and Brashear first fought just two minutes into the contest. Brashear, a muscular 28-year-old, was clearly winning, but the referees allowed the fight to proceed and the veteran McSorley was humiliated. McSorley, a battered 36-year-old with bad wrists...
...Fischler said the league dealt relatively harshly with McSorley - 23 games is a record - "because he's an easy target. He's... at the end of his career and he committed hockey's only sin: He didn't drop his stick." But that doesn't mean we can expect a rules change. "Every two months the NHL seems to make a decision to crack down on [fighting]," says Fischler. And then it's quickly forgotten...