CANUCKLEHEAD
(Warning: Hockey)

My heart goes out to Todd Bertuzzi.

Not because I approve of the hack job he did on Steve Moore. It was a move that transcended simple words like dumb and wreckless and fell into a zone of deep, dangerous insanity, which I only hope and assume was temporary. Bertuzzi is a quality player, which makes this all the more surprising.

But now, his deep talent for scoring and playmaking, his well-earned reputation as a leader both on and off the ice, his marketability as one of the better power forwards in a game where good ones are rare, and some of the remaining shards of goodwill that hockey has over the other major sports have largely evaporated. People who don't know anything about hockey will point to this incident and talk about how hockey is a game for uneducated goons, ultimate fighting with sticks and knives on your feet, where you can break someone's neck because they knocked out one of your guys a couple of weeks ago and people will merely shrug, suspend him for a while, and move on.

What hockey needs is a serious charm offensive, and with the looming lockout, I wish I could be more optimistic that it's gonna happen.