Violence in

hockey is

reflective of

our society

Marty McSorley picked a bad time to do a bad thing.

McSorley's lust for revenge apparently overrode common sense. The Boston Bruins defenseman felled Donald Brashear of the Vancouver Canucks with a two-handed stick attack to the right side of Brashear's head with only 2.7 second left in a game.

Brashear, who was taken from the ice on a stretcher and in a neck brace, sustained a concussion among other minor injuries and is expected to be sidelined for as many as three weeks.

Common sense should have told McSorley his blindside swing at Brashear was dumb. Doing so when the NHL is so image conscious was even dumber.

"Mr. McSorley's act is entirely unacceptable," said NHL vice president and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell. "It would be grossly unfair to suggest that his conduct is at representative of the game, of the other 700 players who play in the NHL or of the countless others who play hockey at all levels. We regret that this action occurred and that it has brought this kind of attention to our game."

That's from the third paragraph of a release from the NHL. It isn't until the 15th paragraph of that release does Campbell even get around to discussing Brashear, and then it is just to reference that "the situation is still outstanding. The health of Donald Brashear is the single most important factor in this hearing."

Campbell went on to add: "Unfortunately, this had to rear its ugly head near the end of a pretty good hockey career." That's McSorley's if you were wondering.

The concern of the NHL seems clear. They are worried about how this incident -- and incidents like this that are sure to happen again -- will affect the league's marketability.

Perhaps they should be concerned about how cracking down on goons like McSorley will affect the marketability of the league. After all, many of the fans flocking to hockey games are flocking to see the violence and the mayhem.

Don't think so? When was the last time you saw a sellout at a girls hockey game?

There is a fine line in hockey between the violence that comes with the physical nature of the game and the McSorley-Brashear incident. McSorley contends he only wanted to provoke Brashear into a fight, to avenge an earlier fight between the two that Brashear got the better of.

The NHL, obviously, cannot condone outright assault on the ice, especially acts -- like McSorley's savage swing at Brashear -- that are likely to lead to serious injury. So the league has come down severely on McSorley, likely ending the veteran defenseman's career.

But the NHL, on the other hand, doesn't want to end violence on the ice.

The NHL knows that a large number of fans go to hockey games, and watch hockey games on TV, to see the violence, to see fights, and yes, to see hockey players take swings at other hockey players with their sticks. It is not so much an indictment of the NHL as it is our society.

The crowd cheers as players drop their gloves and begin to dance around on the ice. They come to see pucks flying into the net, but they also come to see fists flying into flesh, too.

This trend has become worse in the last few years as the NHL has introduced the game into markets -- namely the Sun Belt states -- where fans have little knowledge of the game. They may not know what a two-line pass is but they know who the winner of a fight is when one combatant has pummeled the other to the ice.

The violence of the game gets these fans into the seats, and it keeps them coming back for more. If the NHL reacts too severely and demonizes violence, they can surely count on losing a number of fans.

Until our society changes, there really isn't much more the NHL can do but do deal with the McSorleys of the hockey world when such an incident occurs. Doing anything more would rob the game of its primary marketing tool.

There is no easy answer, but emasculating the game isn't the course that should be followed. The violence and the physical nature of hockey is an integral part of the game -- take that away and the remnants aren't hockey, and fans won't pay to see it.

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