It was a Monday night in Vancouver. There was a buzz in the air. Everyone knew something was going to happen.
It’s hard to believe that exactly two decades have gone by since what is widely known as the Todd Bertuzzi incident took place on March 8, 2004.
At the time, I was working as the VP of Marketing at Pacific Trading Cards, based in the northern Seattle suburb of Lynnwood, WA. I also wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com, focusing on hot players and offering fantasy hockey tips. The column was a great outlet because it let me continue to write, as my background was as a journalist, columnist and feature writer before I ventured into sports card marketing and product development.
The incident – obviously we are talking about Todd Bertuzzi’s sucker punch on Colorado’s Steve Moore – makes me think of two things.
First, the whole thing had a major impact on our promotion with British Columbia-based grocer Save-on-Foods, and its smaller sister chain, Overwaitea Foods. The promotion was launching Tues., March 9. We had produced a 24-card set of Pacific Vancouver Canucks cards that customers could purchase after buying groceries at the store. We had shipped a life size Todd Bertuzzi cutout to every Save-on-Foods and Overwaitea location in the province.
How’s that for timing?
The second thing I think of is that it is the only time in the history of my tenure that I received death threats. And it was more than a few. I’ll get to that a little later in the story, but for some foreshadowing, let’s just say that some ESPN.com readers didn’t exactly agree with my breakdown of the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident.
Brad May’s Bounty
I didn’t have the greatest view of the incident from where I was sitting, and it all went down incredibly fast.
But to look at the incident on its own does not really tell the whole story. There was a lot of lead-up to the sucker punch.
Three weeks earlier, on Feb. 16, 2004, the whole thing started when Moore put a devastating hit on Vancouver superstar and captain Markus Naslund, who happened to be the NHL’s scoring leader at the time. Naslund, Bertuzzi and Brendan Morrison formed the best line in the NHL at the time.
Naslund was extended, reaching for the puck, and Moore caught him with a head shot. Naslund suffered a concussion and a bone chip in his elbow. He missed three games from the injury.
The rage came from Vancouver when referee Dan Marouelli made a no-call, ruling the hit legal. The NHL reviewed it and backed him up.
Canucks GM Brian Burke, who would later become the NHL’s chief disciplinarian, told the media that it was “a marginal player going after a superstar with a headhunting hit.” Few argued his sentiments, as Naslund was a superstar and Moore was a young fourth liner trying to make a name for himself in the league.
Brad May, a blood-and-guts fan favorite who is beloved in Buffalo and in Vancouver, was the one who drew the initial line in the same. He told the media that Moore was a piece of s**t, and announced that he was placing a bounty on Moore.
On March 3, Naslund returned to the line-up as the Canucks visited Colorado. NHL Commissioner Gry Bettman was in attendance, and all eyes were on Moore and what would happen to him.
The game ended in a 5-5 tie – there was no overtime then – so a point in the standings meant more than retribution. But five nights later, the teams met on Canucks’ home ice, and General Motors Place was charged up.
The Incident
Early in the first period, Moore was challenged by Matt Cooke of the Canucks and they had a go. Cooke, ironically, is known for being one of the dirtiest players in the NHL. Remember, he was the guy who sliced Erik Karlsson’s Achilles tendon with his skate. It would be more believable if Moore was going after Cooke in a payback fight than the other way around.
The fight was, well, underwhelming. Cooke didn’t really tune up Moore to the extent that everyone in Vancouver thought he deserved.
Colorado fans, their team, and their fans have always insisted that Moore fought, so the whole thing should be over. Their fans and media did not grow up with hockey, as the Avalanche were still less than a decade old after relocating from Quebec. In the hockey culture, how they thought it should be isn’t exactly how it is.
Things happened in that game that would lead to the hit. Colorado was leading 8-2 in Vancouver’s barn, and everyone was miserable and nasty.
In the third period, Bertuzzi decided to take matters into his own hands and teach Moore, in his opinion, a lesson he clearly had not learned. Bertuzzi was tugging at Moore’s jersey, calling him out to fight. Moore decided to ignore Bertuzzi rather than drop the gloves. That infuriated Bertuzzi, and the hulking Canucks winger grabbed Moore’s jersey from behind him and sucker punched him in the jaw. They went down, with Bertuzzi on top of Moore, and then two players – one from each team – piled on. A line brawl erupted with everyone but the goalies fighting.
Bertuzzi received a huge ovation, as the Canucks’ faithful read the incident as Moore finally got what was coming to him. But when everyone realized Moore was unconscious and not moving, the arena became you-could-hear-a-pin-drop quiet.
Moore was taken off the ice on a stretcher and was transported immediately to Vancouver General Hospital. He was later transferred to a Denver hospital, where he was treated for three fractured vertebrae in his neck, a grade-three concussion, vertebral ligament damage, stretching of the brachial plexus nerves, and facial lacerations.
Bertuzzi was ejected from the game and suspended indefinitely by Bettman.
All I could think about was ‘what are we going to do with all of those Bertuzzi cut-outs?’
I felt really bad for Oliver Lea. He was Pacific’s Canadian sales representative and Oliver worked very hard making this deal with Save-on-Foods and Overwaitea happen. When collectors look back at the window of time when Pacific made NHL hockey cards, they really have no idea how vital and important Oliver was to our success. I think I had more fun and enjoyed working trade shows and travelling with him than anyone I ever worked with at the various companies I worked for, even though I annoyed the crap out of him.
The Death Threats
I wrote about the incident for ESPN.com that week, and I tried to break it down by saying that there was a lot of blame to go around besides what Bertuzzi was facing.
But here was the thing. I talked to some people around the NHL, and there were a lot of training staff and medical people that believed that Moore’s neck was broken when his teammate, Andrei Nikolishin, dove onto Bertizzi and Moore when Moore’s head was against the ice. Nikolishin was the hammer, and Bertuzzi was the nail. Over the months and years, I have seen the clip of the play more than 1,000 times. No one can prove either way who broke Steve Moore’s neck, but the Nikolishin theory has a lot of merit.
The story I wrote was an exercise in people forming quick opinions and not understanding what they are reading.
Let me explain. My story started by saying that there was no excuse for what Bertuzzi did. If he wanted to fight Moore, he could have gone about it a different way. What he did was wrong, and he was at fault. He deserved a long suspension. But there was also a lot of blame to go around aside from Bertuzzi.
Let’s start with Steve Moore. First of all, he concussed a superstar with a head shot that he has consistently said was a clean hockey hit. He also says he had no idea it was Naslund. But knowing after the fact what really happened, he had to be ready to answer the bell. The Matt Cooke fight was a preliminary, and that wasn’t enough. Todd Bertuzzi was skating behind him up the ice, tugging at his sweater, and it was time to go. It would have worked out a lot better for him if he had just turned around and fought Bertuzzi. He would have lost, but his career would not have been ended.
And then there is Vancouver coach Marc Crawford. He let things get out of control, though at the time he had no idea it would end in a career-ending injury for Moore. It is often said he did not do enough, or anything, regarding Brad May’s bounty on Moore.
Colorado coach Tony Granato really had no business giving Moore a regular shift at that point in the game. Granato, who once was suspended 15 games for a retaliation cross check to the head, played Moore on a regular shift. Keep in mind that the mood in Vancouver was ugly. They were beating the Canucks 8-2 on their home ice and there is a bounty on your young player’s head. What was he thinking giving Moore a regular shift? He served him up. Frustrations and tension boiled over. It was the perfect time for Vancouver to let out some frustration by giving Moore a good pounding.
The referees in the original Feb. 16 game who let the play go uncalled are at fault as well. Had they given Moore five and a game, and then the NHL would back them up, this all would have been avoided. NHL officiating is brutally subjective and situational. It is also inconsistent and sometimes hard to watch. The officials dropped more than the puck in that incident.
And what about Brad May? He started this whole circus by telling the media he was putting a bounty on Moore’s head.
Unfortunately, people read the column and thought I was sticking up for Bertuzzi, or justifying what he did. Clearly I was not sticking up for him at all. What he did was idiotic, and there is no room for that at any level of hockey, including episodes of Shoresy. I responded to all of the emails, explaining that I was not at all sticking up for Bertuzzi or justifying his actions, but I was just blaming more people than just him. Most seemed to get it after they reread it.
Everyone wishes the incident never happened. It was horrible, and Steve Moore never got to enjoy a long career.
The death threats were disturbing. People would say they were going to come and get me and break my neck to see how it felt. What really bothered me was when people said they were going to sucker punch my kids and break their necks. My kids were seven and 11 at the time.
Then there were emails praising me for the most brilliant breakdown of the incident ever. Guys wanted to go for a beer and talk hockey, and women wanted to marry me.
There was no middle ground.
McDonald’s
The big project we were working on internally at Pacific was the 2004-05 McDonald’s hockey card set. That license via sponsorship now belongs to Tim Hortons, who partner with Upper Deck. Todd Bertuzzi was a huge part of this set and was in many inserts. Bertuzzi was, at this point, a villain. McDonald’s was not sure how much Bertuzzi would be in their set.
The answer was none. When the NHL announced the lockout and the NHLPA told us they were going to sit out all year and pull our license, the problem went away rather abruptly as the McDonald’s project was mothballed.
The day before Memorial Day weekend was the day that the NHLPA dropped the hammer on us. They allowed us to release 2004-05 Pacific Hockey since we had already produced the product. That was the only NHL-NHLPA licensed card set of that year. Mike Cramer sold the company, the brand names, the equipment, and the building. Pacific was over.
The next day I went home to spend a week with my dad, who was dying of brain cancer. On my way home from Ottawa to Seattle, my dad passed away while I was in the air. I got home, did a load of laundry, repacked, and went back home.
The Save-on-Foods Vancouver Canucks cards are out there to be had on eBay and COMC. They are plentiful, as most food or promotional sets are. Each of the 24 cards are priced from $2 to $3.
But the question I never knew the answer to was obvious. What ever happened to the Todd Bertuzzi life size cutouts? I want one. And if I had one, and put it in my collectors’ cathedral, would it remind me of Bertuzzi’s hit on Steve Moore? Would it remind me of Pacific’s very last retail portion? Would it remind me of the Bertuzzi, Naslund, Morrison line?
No.
It would remind me of my old friend Oliver Lea, shaking his head and putting it in his hand in frustration, wondering how and why the hobby gods would allow this to happen.
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Notes: Skinnier Update Boxes; Mike Cramer Interview; Black Friday Show; MeiGray NHL Game-Worn Program
