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Todd Bertuzzi acted like the ultimate thug during his on-ice attack of Steve Moore. The on-ice officials acted promptly by issuing a match penalty to Bertuzzi for deliberately attempting to injure Moore. The National Hockey League acted swiftly, first by suspending him indefinitely after the game pending a hearing, and then by subsequently suspending him for at least the rest of this season, including playoffs, at that hearing.

It's unfortunate that this incident happened. In no way am I trying to convince anyone that Bertuzzi's punishment isn't just or appropriate. As usual, however, mainstream society only seems to be alerted to the sport of hockey in a general sense when one of these events occurs.

The most ridiculous attempt at self-moralization by the media took place on March 11th when USA Today columnist Christine Brennan wrote that this incident should signal the elimination of hockey as a major sport, and the NHL specifically.

She wrote that the Bertuzzi incident, "...was so terrible, the NHL (should) suspend itself. Come to think of it, that's not such a bad idea. Who among us would notice if, this autumn, we found ourselves surveying a sports landscape without major league hockey? And how many of us would complain?"

Ms. Brennan is considered to be one of the better sportswriters in the country, and has carved a niche for herself as a champion of women's sports issues. Some would say that she is a shill for figure skating and Title IX.

On the subject of hockey, however, her recent column is so misguided, it's obvious that her contempt for the sport clouds her judgment and raises some unique conflict-of-interest issues regarding her integrity on this issue.

To be fair, she is not the only national sportswriter breaking out the moral card and being sanctimonious about how the ugliness of the Bertuzzi incident damages the sport beyond repair. Yet, since she chose a national forum to voice her narrow-minded views about hockey, she is the one we will answer to here.

After all, I don't recall reading a column from her calling for the elimination of the NFL after Mike Utley, Dennis Bird, and Daryl Stingley were all paralyzed in football injuries. I don't remember her railing against unmitigated and unchecked violence in football when concussions ended the careers of players like Steve Young and Troy Aikman.

The NBA is a popular league that Ms. Brennan has written about from time to time. Yet, I performed a Google search preparing this story to see if I could find an article with her by-line calling for the elimination of pro basketball after Latrell Sprewell tried to choke his coach, P.J. Carlesimo As you might suspect, I was unable to locate one.

I also haven't found any articles by Ms. Brennan about the demise of basketball due to incidents such as Charles Barkley spitting on an 8-year-old in New Jersey during a game in 1990, or every time a riot occurs on a college campus when it's team wins a national championship in any sport.

Baseball is America's pastime, for sure. So it's interesting to note that Ms. Brennan doesn't utilize her forum of influence to call for the banishment of baseball from the earth after Mike Piazza was hit by a Roger Clemens fastball in the head (on purpose) during a 2000 regular season game, or had a broken bat thrown back at him in anger by Clemens in the World Series later that same year.

She had no problem apparently with Dennis Martinez ending Kirby Puckett's career with a bean ball to the face that caused glaucoma in his eye. She isn't enraged that the people running baseball are too scared of their own players association to unilaterally eliminate steroid use from its game.

Even when the sport she champions the cause for (figure skating) produces ugly incidents like the intentional injuring of Nancy Kerrigan by Tonya Harding's associates, or the judging fiasco from the last Olympics, Brennan's biting commentary about the elimination of figure skating from the sports landscape is no where to be found.

Instead, it's conveniently replaced by a commentary about the increase in television ratings, while omitting the obvious fact that portions of this society are intrigued by violence in any circumstance.

As for whether anyone would complain about the elimination of hockey, I would suggest to Ms. Brennan that the 20,390,908 fans that went through NHL turnstiles last season would certainly miss the sport. I would argue that the nearly 100 million people that occupied NHL tickets since 1998 might feel a loss searching for hockey that wasn't there, and would clearly complain about it.

She mentions the success of the movie Miracle, the story of the 1980 Olympic hockey win over the Soviet Union. She adds a quote from Mike Eurzione, who played for that team and says about fighting, "In the Olympics and in college, if you fight, they throw you out of the game and the next game ... you become disciplined to turn the other cheek or get a good, solid, legal hit in later in the game."

Ms. Brennan fails to mention that one of the scenes in the movie, which portrays a fight during practice between Jack O'Callahan and Rob McClanahan (as payback for a cheap shot from a game played years earlier), didn't happen in real life. It was placed into the movie for dramatic affect, and was actually an important moment in the film in terms of how the two were later able to put their differences aside and become the best of teammates.

She also quotes a former spokesman from the U.S. Olympic Committee in the story. Of course, Ms. Brennan fails to qualify that comment by reminding the reader of the recent USOC scandals of embezzlement. By the way, I can't quite find her story in the USA Today archives calling for the withdrawal of teams from the United States in future Olympic competitions as a result of the USOC's improprieties.

The point here is that writers like Ms. Brennan love to take this opportunity to take shots at a sport like hockey, which is not the most popular sport. It's worth mentioning that perhaps some of her disdain for the sport might have more to do with it not employing an equal number of female athletes, and less to do with an actual understanding or appreciation for the game.

I can appreciate the gracefulness and athletic ability of a Michelle Kwan. Figure skating is not my favorite sport, but I would freely admit this point when speaking about it in a national publication.

Ms. Brennan owed it to her readers to preface her remarks by admitting her obvious loathing for the sport. Ms. Brennan might also want to keep in mind that when she writes about, "the thousands of parents ... cringing every time another so-called superstar threatens to ruin a season's worth of sportsmanship lessons with one brutish outburst," how silly this argument is when you consider the number of incidents involving parents' behavior in youth sporting organizations throughout North America on a yearly basis. They are numerous and well-documented, yet no ones wants to eliminate youth sports programs.

It's clear that Christine Brennan, a graduate of a university (Northwestern) of higher education which belongs to a conference (Big 10) that can't even correctly count the number of teams in its conference (11), needs to qualify her take as biased and perhaps should consider some additional research about violence in other sports.

Todd Bertuzzi is receiving the justice he deserves. Ms. Brennan should perhaps consider this in the future, before using a broad brushstroke in painting hockey as something we need to rid ourselves of.

Jonathan Moncrief is the Senior Editor of That's Life! entertainment magazine.

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