Pratt and Taylor are killing me...

[Regs]

It's not plagerism is you quote your source and by source I mean you add who "posted" and where it was posted (direct thread link).

That being said, I highly doubt they would follow up on it

Cheers,

~Regs.

 

[Dude]

KNVB, have you heard the Moj at all today? I caught him earlier on the Bill Good show, and the difference in how he expresses his opinions is night and day vs. Pratt. He takes a very black and white viewpoint, and isn't getting biased and emotional about it, as Pratt is.

You can tell that the Moj was a jock, and did play at a high level in a violent game. Same with Lee Powell commenting on the Team...you have to respect their viewpoints.

We may all disagree on the suspension, etc., but it seems everyone agrees that Pratt is a knob. Personally, he lost me on the 911 comparison.

As for Taylor, I did respect his opinion, and reaction- given his history and that he too played a violent game, and has real experience. BUT...he has failed to take Pratt to task on a bunch of point whereas the Moj would have called him to the carpet- especially on the 911. Taylor let that one slip by way too easily. Taylor becoming the yes man he appears to be now has killed any credibility he has built up.

I lost a lot of respect for the Dan Patrick show yesterday, too. Letting that Netballer get by with those idiotic comments, then having fcuking Tonya Harding on the show...Christ on Snowmobile... (Copyright: 803 Fastyisms for Posting)

 

[Regs]

Taylor is at least attempting to gain some credability again right now... Prat of course is being a rather large and sloppy cnut

"Who made Burke God?"

~Regs.

 

[Guinness]

Too late for Taylor...
I've lost all respect for him... It is too late for him to back pedal now... He can continue to suck off big fat David Pratt as far as I'm concerned!!!

Sausages the two of them!!!

 

[knvb]

Dude, spot on. I was thinking the same thing about Mojo the other day on how he's very neutral actually LISTENING to both sides of the argument and such and not getting emotional.

If you listen to Pratt now, you can catch one of the all time greatest back peddling exhibitions ever put forth. His tune has so drastically changed after Burkes rant and Todds apology. Now we should feel sorry for Bert because he shed a tear? He would have called you a moron and hung up on you yesterday for saying that. I now hate Pratt more than ever.

Apparently the only thing important the last few days was "that young kid with a BROKEN NECK" now it's burke and the NHL... He was offended when people brought up other issues and was berating you for even suggesting it, now he going and doing it... hypocrite.

To his credit Taylor is battling his way back.

Edit: Dan Patrick is a legend. That Tonya Harding bit had me in tears. He just doesn't know very much about hockey IMHO.

 

[Fat Bastard]

I have got to get a radio in the office - or get the tech-cnut to fix the media player on our network!

Anyhow, Pratt's been driving me nuts since they put him on 1040. I love the Moj and Pratt stole it from him. He thinks he knows sports and business, and he clearly doesn't have a clue on either.

I didn't hear the 9/11 reference, but good God how can he even make a connection like that. That's just fcuking in appalling and callous.

As for the rest of the junk media out there. BCTV are notorious ambulance chasers - but expected better from Chernecki. Willes lost a lot of my respect, as did Taylor (how about the freaking ass-kissing Pratt and Chapman give Taylor every day?).

As for Gallagher... he's like Strachan East. These guys make sh*t up regularly. I am glad Burke called Strachan on this on HNIC. Did you hear how Strachan back-pedalled later in the week - saying he was talking CDN$, and $1.2 million US is $2 million CDN. What a wanker.

Bottom line, it's time for the media to drop this. The fcuking playoffs start in less than a month, and the Canucks have as good a shot as anyone in making a run - even without Bertuzzi. This event is over. Drop it and move on. Stop milking an incident you describe as heinous for bigger ratings share and better newspaper sales.

 

[Regs]

This is just too fcuking much. Pratt is telling everyone that they have hammerred this issue enough and it is time to fix the root of the problem, that if the Aves/Moore is fined way back with the Nazzy hit, Bertuzzi never hits Moore!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?
I suspect that someone in the media has had a word with Pratt and told him that earlier references by other respected reporters of over-the-top sports commentators were in fact directed at him.

~Regs.

 

[Dude]

They just gave that twat "JT the Brick" about 10 minutes, and again...a perfect opportunity to rip apart a guy who clearly doesn't know the game, even though he claims to. Yet, both these guys fight to see who can get their tongues further up his ass.

"You gotta make it up to Vancouver one of these days, Brotha!"

I'm turning the radio off now...there is such a thing as too much.

 

[knvb]

Just punted the radio

Listen to the homo now who's saying Pratt is full off class for saying "lets move on."

Hang up now you idiot.

Now the incident has been run to death by every media outlet, yet 1040 is in the midst of a 12 hour special devoted to it? Fcuk off.

I give up.

 

[Fat Bastard]

Do you notice that 'hockey' people (with the exception of Colin Campbell, Bettman et al), have been pretty low-keyed in their opinions on this. As Brendan Shanahan alluded to ... the most vocal people may have their own agenda.

Damn right. The Avs of course would like nothing more than a Bertuzzi-less Canucks in the playoffs. Georges Laraques hates Bertuzzi. And the press hates Bertuzzi. Plus, the media can milk something like this - and its got legs.

This doesn't excuse Bertuzzi in any way. And I am not entirely sure that the suspension wasn't a just one.

But the rhetoric has been something awful - mostly from Pratt. If one more person calls it a broken neck I am going to go nuts. McGooch made that point this morning, which I thought showed some balls. And I have seen the replay countless times - and again not condoning the punch - I just don't see Bertuzzi 'driving' his head into the ice. I see two guys falling to the ice - one guy out cold and virtually 200 lbs of dead weight.

Ah well. Burkie shot off at the media this morning, so we can get back on that train again anytime.

 

[Sandman]

Some comments about The Score on Headline Sports. Since when were Peter Worrell, George Laraque, and Kristoff Oliwa the voices of reason. Why the fcuk are they even getting airtime on this. Who cares about their opinion on this matter. I can't understand why the media would even think of asking this lot.

Sandman

 

[Therapist]

Glad I haven't listened to a radio since Tiger this morning. He was right on. It was funny how mad he was getting the more he was talking about it. I can't stand Pratt, and Taylor has been a total idiot as well.

Just amazing how much press this has gotten. My wife was saying those ugly skanks on the view were going on about it. What the fcuk would Star Jones know anything about sports.

Im also getting pissed with the fact people keep saying "broken neck".

 

[Fat Bastard]

Off the call-in geek topic for a moment, and onto the bigger picture...

I am probably going to take some major stick for this, but given the NHL is the ONLY pro sport where fighting is accepted (and encouraged), is this not the inevitable result? Would such things be less likely to occur if fighting was banned?

I may have my head up my ass, but I think so. Because of the 'code' the line between right and wrong in the hockey arena, in the heat of battle, becomes blurred. It's cut and dry for the spectator and the media, but probably not for the athlete at that terrible regrettable moment.

If the NHL were to crackdown on stickwork and fighting, would the game not be more akin to what we saw in the Olympics. I am not saying take the physicality out of the game, but football, rugby and even soccer are very physical games but still toss fighters out of the game.

Surely to God, if the players knew that fighting would get them tossed from a game, then someone in Bertuzzi's situation would have to know that punching a guy upside the head would not be a wise idea.

Of course, with that comes the heightened responsibility of the NHL, NHLPA and the referees to take zero-tolerance with other malicious acts such as stickwork, knees and elbows.

But this is hockey. And Don Cherry is the man. We want our fights, we want our hockey. Hell, even David Pratt has been harping about how the Canucks need to be tougher, they need an enforcer. As has been pointed out the Province had a countdown to the Nucks/Avs game. The press gave Brad May plenty of time to make his now very regrettable 'bounty' remark.

Well you can't have it both ways. Many of the same people condemning Bertuzzi now, were the same people egging him on as he stalked Moore around the ice. These are the same people you know who smiled the moment Bertuzzi swung at Moore.

Bertuzzi was wrong, stupid and callous. But quite frankly he is the product of his environment. We should be upset by what happened, but we certainly shouldn't be surprised.

Going to get off my soapbox now. We can now return to our regularly scheduled Pratt and Taylor bashing.

 

[Regs]

Dan Patrick just started off his show by saying he talked to Bertuzzi's friend/personal trainer yesterday. The friend apparently said that Todd was a good guy, family man, etc. and then said that it was comparable to Martha Stewart.

Patrick then went on a rant about there being no comparison. Fair enough though I do see what the friend was saying (media lynch mob/vultures).

But here's the kicker. He turned the rant into not wanting to hear "testimonials" about Bertuzzi. He didn't care what a friend had to say.

Am I the only one to see the problem here?

Why the fcuk did you seek out to "talk" with Bertuzzi's friend?!!?!?

Fcuk off.

~Regs.

 

[knvb]

Chew on this one...

Bertuzzi a product of hockey's culture




By Jim Kelley
ESPN.com

The best and brightest minds in the NHL did the best they could in navigating the issues and elements relating to Todd Bertuzzi's contemptible hit on Steve Moore. In suspending Bertuzzi for the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs, and opting to re-examine whether the punishment will still fit the crime when training camps reopen, the NHL has taken a huge step in the right direction in punishing such acts.

But it doesn't really matter.

What the NHL did is what the NHL always does in these circumstances: It denies the problem is systemic. It argues that such acts do not belong in the game, are not a part of its game and should never be considered part of the game.

But that's not true.

What Bertuzzi did to Moore -- seeking him out with the intent to physically harm him, and doing so from behind -- has been a part of hockey for as long as the game has existed. It's as much a part of the culture of the game as sticks and skates and pucks.

It's also, in very large part, a Canadian thing.

The second most widely reported lie you will read during the following months of in what is now the wretched life of Todd Bertuzzi is that what he did is not who he is or how he plays the game.

The fact is, it's very much a part of who he is and how he plays the game -- and it's been that way almost from the day he first laced up his skates. It's a part of the dirty side of hockey that has existed seemingly since it became an organized sport.

The NHL, which embraces and sometimes even sells violence as a part of the game, deserves some of the blame. Bertuzzi, unquestionably, deserves more than he will ever be able to admit.

But in a larger sense, so does every coach who has ever led a kid to believe that retribution is part of the game and ever parent who has never told a child otherwise. It extends to every member of every front office -- from the grass-roots level, to major junior and to the pros -- who has subscribed to Conn Smythe's adage "If you can't beat them in the alley, you can't beat them on the ice" and assembled their team to do both.

The blame even extends to a great many broadcasters and writers, on both sides of the border, who feed the beast.

So when Colin Campbell, the NHL's executive vice president for hockey operations, says, "All these things stand alone," it's almost laughable. Just having so many "things" defeats the every essence of his argument.

For the record, this isn't the first time Bertuzzi has showed poor judgment with his use of aggression. He broke the nose of defenseman Karlis Skrastins, a non-fighter who's yet to crack 50 minutes in penalties in a single season, last year. He's been suspended for hitting an official, who was breaking up a fight Bertuzzi wouldn't back down from. He left the bench to participate in an an altercation four games into the 2001-02 season and was suspended 10 games, a penalty that arguably cost him the scoring title.

But he isn't the only one. At the risk of being charged with stereotyping, Bertuzzi's behavior is typical of the hockey culture in Canada, a country that has long claimed the game as its own.

Look at the record.

The list is seemingly endless and Bertuzzi, a "good Canadian boy from Sudbury, Ontario," is only the most recent Canadian native to rise to the top of a rather lengthy list of infamous characters.

There is of course Marty McSorley, lauded for serving as Wayne Gretzky's personal bodyguard, who commit the last unforgivable "stand alone" cheap shot four years ago when he whacked Donald Brashear across the side of the head -- from behind -- in the very same arena where Bertuzzi incapacitated Moore. It was Dale Hunter who separated Pierre Turgeon's shoulder with a hit from behind in 1993 and received a 21-game suspension -- the longest ever at the time -- from new commissioner Gary Bettman.

Least we forget, Matt Johnson took out Jeff Beukeboom with a cheap shot that ultimately ended Beukeboom's career. And Canadian media darling Tie Domi did it not once (a flying elbow away from the play that KO'd Scott Niedermayer in the 2001 playoffs), but twice (a sucker-punch to the kisser of Ulf Samuelsson in 1995). For the latter, he earned an eight-game suspension and a pat on the back from players who'd been witnesses to Samuelsson's cheap shots.

Then there's Dave Brown's stick-to-the-throat on Tomas Sandstrom and Claude Lemieux's cheap-shot hit-from-behind on Kris Draper.

And we haven't even addressed the duels that caved in the occasional skull or two in the pre-Bettman era, in the days when men were really men.

The list goes on and on and, for the most part, it's been a good ol' Canadian boys who have headed the cheap-shot parade.

America has its share of dirty players, and certainly there are noteworthy Europeans who could be accused of the same, but clearly there is a trend here.

Canadians and, I suspect, the NHL itself will rail in protest at the charge, but not all of them.

"I am a Canadian and I'm proud of that, but I can't say you're wrong," said former New York Rangers general manager Neil Smith. "There's a mentality in some parts of Canada that this is the way hockey is and should be. You've seen it from (Canadian broadcaster) Don Cherry on 'Hockey Night in Canada' and from some others. It's endorsed as long as it's by some favored son of the Canadian game. But sooner or later it's going to end with someone's death. The culture of hockey, the longer it goes on, the inevitable result will be a death on the ice."

When you look at the numbers, you have to at least ask if there's some merit to the charge.

The NHL's top five leaders in career penalty minutes -- Tiger Williams, Hunter, McSorley, Bob Probert and Domi -- are all products of the Canadian system and have committed the very acts the NHL says isn't a part of its game.

Yes, Canadians have always comprised a higher percentage of NHL players (52.1 percent in 2003-04, down from 66.2 percent in 1992-93), but a significant number of other countries have been contributing an ever-growing number of players to the league and the vast majority of them simply don't play the game that way.

After all, how do you explain that of the top 15 leaders in penalty minutes, only two -- Krzysztof Oliwa of Poland and Zdeno Chara of the Czech Republic -- aren't products of Canada.

The reason is simple: It's not in their culture. The Russians of the '60s, '70s and '80s produced some of the most remarkable combinations of talent and toughness the game has ever seen, but none of them ever attempted to take someone's head off from behind, bulldog them face first into the ice and then attempt to deliver what could well have been a killer blow while their opponent lay helpless or unconscious.

Samuelsson might have been a poster boy for dirty European hockey, but I don't recall him ever hitting an opponent in the head with a stick from behind.

America also has a criminal element in many of its sports, but it seldom manifests itself on the playing surfaces of the NFL, Major League Baseball or the NBA. With a few notable exceptions, those despicable acts generally take place outside of the actual games, in large part because the leagues simply don't tolerate them.

It's different in hockey, especially in Canadian hockey.

In many ways Canada is the most civilized country on earth, but how many times have we seen a player applauded for on-ice antics that include "taking a guy out" or "making him pay," code words for vigilante justice in "their game."

In the NFL if a player takes an opponent out with a cheap shot, he is heavily penalized and the other team rewarded with field position. There might be lingering anger, but when was the last time you saw an offensive lineman cross the line of scrimmage and cold **** the offending linebacker in the back of the head?

Do we not witness, on a nightly basis, an NHL player who will hit an opponent after the whistle and be rewarded rather than penalized for it? He might get a warning from the on-ice officials once, twice or even three times in the course of a game, but in the end he emerges with praise for being an aggressive player who "plays the game the way it should be played."

Pity, however, the player who retaliates. He gets a penalty. And if he doesn't retaliate, he is rarely rewarded for taking the slap. He instead is looked upon as "soft." It's all a part of the culture of the game, one that rewards the bully and humiliates the victim.

If Bertuzzi's actions hadn't fractured vertebrae in Moore's neck, he'd have been an honored man in his locker room, the city of Vancouver and across all of Canada. Even now his apologists talk more about "poor Todd" than they do of the injured Moore.

After all, he was just sending a message.

Jim Kelley is the NHL writer for ESPN.com. Submit questions or comments to his mail bag.

 

[LucVanLierde]

So what u are saying is that The Hockey Gladiators will go ahead as planed.

 

[Regs]

Speechless.

What was actually a good article is tarnished with references to Canada. What's the point? Perhaps we should take our game and just go home then. But wait... you'd be out of a job, wouldn't you?

Is a beanball to the head in baseball a part of the game?

Is crashing the boards defensively and protecting the rebound by coming up with your elbows out and flailing a part of the game? (strike that, didn't a Canadian invent basketball )

Is being American and pointing fingers everywhere else a part of the game?



~Regs.

 

[knvb]

So many things piss me off about the American media that not even I have enough time to list them, but at or near the top of the list HAS to be their obvious ignorance to all thing not popular in by American standards... Take the massive media coverage that has only come from an awful incident. Half of these guy have never even heard of Steve Moore until now. It's the same thing with soccer... Rome and like D. Pizzle just did, only ever utter the word soccer if there has been some sort of riot or a death in some small town or obscure team.

It's winds me up to the ump-teen degree.

Thank God Pratt will be on in an hour so I can keep my hate on with him because really, Dan Patrick cracks me up. Like the Tanya Harding interview...

 

[Regs]

Fcukwit Pratt is at it again, trying to tell everyone that off the record, canuck players wouldn't/don't want Bert around the dressing room

I'm convinced that this idiot does not understand athlete's or teams in the least bit. It's unreal how clueless a so-called sports personality can be. How do him and Russell keep their jobs?!?!?!

~Regs.

 

[Dude]

No kidding. He doesn't get it. Taylor does, and to his credit, he challenges Pratt on this.