Violence in Hockey

Hockey has always been known to be a physical sport; it is full of body checks, hits from behind, sometimes the misuse of the hockey stick, and even fights. Now all off these are deemed acceptable by hockey fans to a certain extent. When a player swings his stick at another player and an injury occurs to the opposing man the instigator can usually expect to be penalized for a short amount of time, maybe even a suspension from the team for a few games. But when does this violent act on the ice become a criminal offence? Does it take for the recipient to break his neck, or maybe even loose his vision for us to take a serious look at what happened and realize that this is not what we are looking to watch when we sit down to watch a game. It seems that in order for us to take a look at it from a legal standpoint there needs to be a serious injury, when there are some things that aren't being taken as serious as they maybe should be.

One of the more popular examples of this is the very recent Todd Bertuzzi case. In this case the defendant who is Todd Bertuzzi being charged with assault causing bodily harm. On the night of March 8th, 2004 in Vancouver, Bertuzzi wished to seek revenge on the plaintiff Steven Moore, after a so called "cheap shot", which Steve Moore hit Bertuzzi's teammate Markus Naslund with an elbow in a previous game. Late in the hockey game Bertuzzi proceeded to skate up behind Moore and grabbed his shoulder and ‘sucker punched' Moore in the side of the head, Moore then fell to the ice while a pile-up of players fell on top of him. Moore suffered fractured vertebrae, nerve damage, and a concussion. Right away this was being looked at by Vancouver Police Officials and the decision was whether or not this should be viewed from a legal standpoint. Arguments went back and forth with opinions after opinions.

The first actions that were taken were from the NHL. They chose to suspend Bertuzzi indefinitely and a fine was sent down. Steve