Revolutionary Moderation

I ignore the water cooler talk at my peril



I tried and tried yesterday to write something about Todd Bertuzzi, and hockey in general. But what was to be said that hasn't been said by dozens of commentators already?



Then this morning it hit me - the way Canada has reacted to the Todd Bertuzzi hit is almost exactly the way the United States reacted to the Janet Jackson nipple-o-rama. We reacted in outrage at the the original event, even though it was not wildly different from what goes on all the time in the NHL - the only real difference being the severity of the result. They reacted in outrage at Janet's exposure, though it came as the culminating point of an ode to sexual violence that should have been shocking in total. We screamed, Mrs. Lovejoy-like, "What about the children?", as if our eleven-year-old boys have never hit each other on a playground, and they did the same, as if their eleven-year-old boys have never used Google. And we objected to being exposed to such brutal violence, while watching it being played over and over on every broadcast outlet. The Americans? Well, they had pixelation.



Obviously, Bertuzzi needed to face a serious suspension, and if this incident makes hockey take a long hard look at themselves, great. Hockey's been getting worse for a decade now, and it's not the fault of violence, it's the fault of the deathly-dull neutral zone trap. Do NHL fans love the violence? Sure - the few fans left do, because the trap cripples the attractions of speed and exciting offense (and for that matter, of a defense rising to the occasion when being sorely tested - THAT'S the physical game I grew up with).



Get me a bigger rink, get rid of the centre line, or even do like the NBA and outlaw the zone defense. Until then, guys are going to try to kill each other on the ice, lacking anything better to do. And I'll be watching Canada's sport in the meantime.



Edited to add: when a guy who lists his primary sport-watching interests as curling and cricket (that's me!) thinks your sport has become too slow, you are screwed!