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Thursday, February 24, 2000
Party's over for Marty
... but the time does not fit the crime
What you wanted to hear from the National Hockey League yesterday was how much time for the crime. What a great many people in the game and outside the game wanted to hear was lifetime.
We didn't hear that.
For bashing Donald Brashear from behind over the head with a hockey stick, Marty McSorley has been banished for 23 games - plus playoffs in the unlikely event the Boston Bruins make it into post-season play this spring.
Twenty-three games was the number of games remaining on the Bruins schedule before they lost 4-2 to the Edmonton Oilers last night at Skyreach Centre.
The rest, if there is a rest, is open-ended. Subject to "appropriate discussion,'' in the words of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
But will the NHL leave it like this if McSorley, who also loses $72,000 in salary, can't find a team interested in his services for next year?
Will we ever know, in the year 2000, how much time you get for this sickening crime?
Shouldn't this be a matter of more than how many games remain on the schedule?
Shouldn't the NHL be making a statement? Will we ever know if this had happened 23 games into the schedule instead of with 23 left, whether McSorley would still have been given the rest of the season plus playoffs plus "appropriate discussion'' about the possibility of his playing in the future?
WANTS TO PLAY NEXT YEAR
McSorley's agent Mike Barnett told NHL officials yesterday in a telephone conference call at the McSorley hearings in New York - which were held without the former Edmonton Oiler in attendance - that the 36-year-old wants to play again next year.
That in itself suggests McSorley isn't as sorry as he should be. He should be so sorry for not only what he did to Brashear, but what he did to the game, that he wouldn't want to show his face in public again, let alone be back in the business of beating people up.
The 23 games makes it the NHL's longest suspension for a violent act of rage in league history. But only by two games. Dale Hunter held the record for suspension involving violence on the ice with 21-games for his act against Pierre Turgeon in the 1993 playoffs.
McSorley has been advised by his lawyers not to speak on the subject while there is a criminal investigation in progress in Vancouver.
Bettman refused to say what might be involved in the highly unlikely event McSorley, who looked like he'd completed his career last year with the Oilers, could find a team willing to offer him a contract for another season.
"If and when we have that meeting, that's a conversation I'll have with Marty first and publicly second,'' said Bettman.
"If Marty's going to return to the ice, we won't be comfortable unless we've had an opportunity to talk with him, make sure we know all the facts at the time and have the appropriate discussion,'' said the commissioner.
And what if a team does offer him a contract for next year?
Wouldn't that team, in effect, be selling tickets to come see the madman who whacked Donald Brashear over the head with a hockey stick? Would the NHL allow Marty McSorley to come back as a sickening sideshow?
SIDESHOW FREAK?
With the suspension length, in effect, open-ended, will the International Hockey League hire McSorley as their sideshow for next year?
Does 23 games plus playoffs plus who-knows-what tell Vancouver police that hockey is capable of policing itself?
"We don't think further involvement by authorities is necessary,'' said NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly. "We've dealt with this decisively and harshly. It's probably sufficient.''
Is it?
The NHL would likely love this story to go away. And if Marty McSorley goes away, eventually it will.
And nobody will know how much time for the crime until the next time.
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