The NHL sent a swift, strong message to Todd Bertuzzi, the Vancouver Canucks forward whose vicious attack on Colorado’s Steve Moore left Moore hospitalized with a broken neck, a concussion and deep facial cuts.
Bertuzzi was suspended on Thursday for at least the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs and his eligibility for next season will be decided by Commissioner Gary Bettman before the start of training camp.
The NHL also fined the Canucks $250,000.
“The message we’re sending is that this is not part of our game, it has no place in our game and it will not be tolerated in our game,” Bettman said in a news conference on Thursday.
Vancouver police are also investigating the attack, which occurred in a game Monday night between the Canucks and the Colorado Avalanche at General Motors Place in Vancouver.
“We are hoping there is no legal action,” Bettman said. “We believe we are adequately and appropriately policing our own game.”
Bertuzzi struck Moore from behind, punching him in the side of the head, then drove his head into the ice. After lying in a pool of blood for several minutes, Moore was removed on a stretcher and Bertuzzi was given a match penalty for attempt to injure.
Moore, a 25-year-old forward, remains hospitalized in Vancouver.
It is unclear whether Bertuzzi would be eligible to compete in the World Cup of Hockey this summer, an Olympic-like tournament featuring teams from Canada, the United States, Russia and other nations. It is also uncertain how the NHL would handle Bertuzzi’s status next season if the league, which says its combined teams lost more than $300 million last year, locks out its players this fall when its labor agreement expires.
The Avalanche general manager, Pierre Lacroix, called the punishment “fair for all parties involved.”
The suspension will cost the 29-year-old Bertuzzi, an All-Star the past two seasons and Vancouver’s top-paid player with a $6.8 million salary, at least $500,000.
The NHL announced its verdict a day after Bertuzzi, his agent Pat Morris, and Canucks general manager Brian Burke met with the NHL’s director of hockey operations, Colin Campbell, in a one-hour disciplinary hearing in Toronto.
“It was wrong,” Campbell said in a news conference. “It wasn’t anything else but wrong. I’m sure Todd Bertuzzi would like to turn the clock back. And I’m sure we’ve all made wrong decisions we’re not proud of.”
In a news conference in Vancouver, Burke said that the way the media have characterized Bertuzzi has been “shameful.”
“What he is is a great hockey player and he’s an excellent human being,” Burke said.
After meeting briefly with his teammates, Bertuzzi made his first public comments about the incident at a news conference Wednesday in Vancouver, offering a tearful apology: “I had no intention of hurting you. . . . I’m sorry for what happened.”
