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Wednesday, February 23, 2000
'Marty should get life'
McSorley's career must end with vicious blow against Brashear
The lifetime freeze frame of Marty McSorley would have been the picture of him on the ice with his dad as he held the Stanley Cup over his head as an Edmonton Oiler.
Now it's a vicious, unprovoked, senseless, barbaric, despicable blind-sided two-hander across the side of Donald Brashear's head.
SICKENING SWING
It was a sickening swing of a stick by McSorley, which struck Brashear's temple is an ugly incident which ranks down there with Wayne Maki's stick swing against Ted Green and Eddie Shore's against Ace Bailey.
McSorley, who did not show up here with his embarrassed Boston Bruin teammates for tonight's game with the Edmonton Oilers, will almost certainly never play pro hockey again.
Nor should he.
And not just because there's a quarter season left in his career and there's no way hockey can give him less than the 21 games Dale Hunter received for an act which can't compare to this.
What McSorley did to Brashear during the final few seconds in Vancouver Monday night should be the very definition of a life suspension.
Thirty-six years old or 26, it should be life. That's easy for a sports columnist to say. But someone else is saying it today, too. An Edmonton enforcer, in the tradition of McSorley and Dave Semenko, thinks it should be life.
Georges Laraque says if you hit somebody over the head with a hockey stick you should not be allowed to play the game again.
"It was sick. It made me sick to my stomach. It totally ruined everything for me,'' said the Oilers' fighter who had gone home Monday night to watch replays of his hat trick only to see the replay which has been played over and over since McSorley put Brashear on the stretcher, shocking and appalling the sports world and general populace.
"I had so much respect for Marty. He won a Stanley Cup. He helped me a lot here last year. But he ruined his reputation forever. That's now the only thing anybody will remember about Marty McSorley,'' said Laraque.
"I hate Donald Brashear. It doesn't matter that I hate Donald Brashear. He's a human being.
'`It doesn't matter that all the hand dusting and posing that he does drives me crazy and a lot of other people crazy. He does it for a show and to drive you crazy. You can't let him drive you crazy. A hockey stick is a weapon. Donald is lucky to be alive.
"Marty should get life. Anybody who does that should get life. He could have killed him. The way he swung his stick ... it was for a home run.''
Ted Green went to practice yesterday completely oblivious to what had happened the night before.
"There is no place for those kind of acts in the NHL or hockey, period,'' said Green after seeing the video, unable to believe he was watching the former Oiler swinging the stick and that something like this was happening 30 years after they placed a plate in his head.
"Nothing justified what he did. Nothing.''
GREAT GUY, BUT ...
Understand, Ted Green is a guy who loves Marty McSorley. So is Georges Laraque.
The guy writing this column thinks he's one of the greatest guys he's ever met in the game. But it should be life for McSorley. Period. Anything less, 20, 30, 40 - you name the number of games - means this league should still be considered Neanderthal.
"It's one thing to think you want to take a guy's head off - figuratively,'' said former teammate Kevin Lowe. "It's one thing to think that. It's another thing to carry through on it.''
Lowe said what struck him was "the sheer viciousness of it.
"He's been a good pro a lot of years. He's fought all the wars and fought them fairly most of the time and been very honourable at his profession.''
Lowe spoke in the past tense.
At least McSorley didn't give it the "I was in a daze'' amnesia defence he used in spearing Mike Bullard in 1988.
"I don't know what to say. It was very stupid. It was nothing I thought of doing. I embarrassed my team. I apologize to Donald Brashear and the fans who watched that,'' said McSorley.
He'll live with it forever.
And so he should.
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