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Wednesday, February 23, 2000
McSorley stepped over the line
Control game before someone dies
Randy Sumner gets buried tomorrow.
Sumner was, of course, the 18-year-old Winnipeg kid beaten to death with a hockey stick on a local street Friday night.
The cops have charged a kid in connection with the murder.
But I wonder what might've happened if Sumner was on a hockey rink instead of the street when this sad act occurred?
What if Sumner was chasing the puck when an opponent lost it and decided to release a similar fit of rage on his head with a stick?
What, then?
Is the rink any different than the street?
The question brings us, unfortunately, to the case of Boston Bruins tough guy Marty McSorley, who recklessly whacked Vancouver Canucks enforcer Donald Brashear in the head with a vicious two-hand slash at the end of Monday night's game.
What if Brashear, like Sumner, died from the blow?
What, then?
Fortunately, Brashear didn't die. He just suffered just a concussion.
But if you've seen the replays, you know he was struck with enough force to cause irreparable damage, possibly death.
Any closer to Brashear's temple, and we might be dealing with two hockey stick tragedies in the same week here in Canada.
One on the street, and one on the ice.
And with Brashear laying motionless and bleeding, suddenly, a match penalty, a fine, and a suspension from the NHL doesn't seem like enough to punish McSorley.
In a case like this, some say, the penalty box just doesn't cut it anymore.
Right now, McSorley has been suspended by the NHL indefinitely.
Everybody, including his teammates, have condemned the action.
His hearing before the NHL bigwigs is today.
And a lot of hockey people, including some locals, think the punishment should rest with the league's discipline committee.
That the game should look after itself.
"I don't think the police should get involved at all," said Dwayne Joseph, general manager for the Manitoba Junior League's St. Boniface Saints. "Give him a fine. Suspend him for a long time. It's the only way to get through to some of these guys, but by no means should he be charged criminally."
Rough sport
Hockey, by nature, is a rough sport.
What happens on the ice, some say, should stay there.
"They allow violence in the game, and even promote it in some respects," said Joseph. "You go to a good junior game, and two guys start fighting, they're playing Batman music when they're done."
McSorley's act, certainly, was not the worst thing to ever happen in a hockey rink.
To name one, Minnesota forward Dino Ciccarelli's lumberjack job on Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Luke Richardson's head in the '80s was more physically threatening.
In that case, Ciccarelli was charged criminally and spent a night in jail.
And in Vancouver, police are still investigating the McSorley incident. Turns out they received a flood of phone calls from irate puck fans who think McSorley stepped over the line and deserves some jail time.
They feel when McSorley swung his stick, it was no longer within the boundaries of a game.
That it stepped into the same realm as what happened to Winnipeg's Randy Sumner.
With one difference.
We can't always control the street.
But we can control the ice.
And this vicious, goon nonsense in hockey should be stopped by the law before somebody gets killed on the ice.
Because right now, we're skating way too far down that ugly path.
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