NHL: Just when you think they can’t do
anything dumber, they do something like this…
By Greg Anzelc
My appetite for sophomoric humor draws me to movies such as National Lampoon's
Vacation, Christmas Vacation, Animal House, The Great Outdoors, Fletch,
Trains, Planes and Automobiles and Dumb and Dumber, to name a few.
Every now and again in an attempt at humor I’ll throw out a line
from one of these movies to see if I can get a reaction out of whomever
it is I’m talking to: something along the lines of responding to
someone, when they ask what I do for a living, by telling them I’m
a carnie, a "pixie dust spreader on the tilt-a-whirl" (Christmas
Vacation); or, "a salesman for American Light and Fixture, Shower
Curtain Ring Division" (John Candy in Trains, Planes and Automobiles).
One of the classic lines for those of us in this little cult is from the
movie Dumb and Dumber when Lloyd – on a cross-country road trip with
his pal Harry - trades in the van owned by the two knuckleheads for a
beat up old moped.
Harry’s response to Lloyd is: "Just when I thought you couldn't
do anything dumber, you do something like this... and completely redeem
yourself!" The two proceed to ride thousands of miles on a moped
to Aspen.
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| Todd Bertuzzi is reinstated into the NHL after missing 13 regular season games. |
Well when I heard that the NHL had decided to reinstate
Todd Bertuzzi this week, the words of Lloyd Christmas came to mind: "Just
when I thought you couldn't do anything dumber, you do something like
this."
On the heels of a lockout that has left collateral damage on the game
far beyond what anyone can measure, the NHL – in one of their first
major announcements since it became official that hockey will be played
this season – reinstates the goon that, only about a dozen regular
season games ago, put one of the dirtiest, cheapest, most cowardly hits
on a player in the history of the game.
Every hockey fan remembers March 2004 when the Vancouver bruiser jumped
Colorado's Steve Moore from behind. The result for Moore was three fractured
vertebrae, nerve damage, a concussion and facial cuts. I can recall the
210-pound Moore in a neck brace on ESPN stating that "he couldn’t
explain how scary it was" to go through being pummeled from behind
by the 6’3" and 245-pound Bertuzzi.
Today Moore’s professional hockey career is over, and he is still
recovering from the injuries.
Yesterday (Monday, August 8) the NHL reinstated Bertuzzi after missing
13 regular season NHL games. He also missed the NHL playoffs and was prevented
from playing in the World Cup of Hockey and any European professional
leagues. But at the end of the day, NHL games missed were 13 plus the
playoffs.
If this is the type of play the NHL wants back in the news – and
apparently they aren’t ready to take a firm stance against it –
there is plenty of hockey, and other stories, to write about.
As the L.A. reporter Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher once said: "I've
been working on another story - the off-track betting in the Himalayas.
It's a smaller story, but I know you've been following it."
Greg Anzelc is the editor of Minnesota
Hockey Journal and can be reached at greg@tpgsports.com.