To serve and protect...when he gets around to it

In case you haven't noticed, the spot on Team Canada's roster that was left open for Todd Bertuzzi was filled by Scott Walker of the Nashville Predators a couple weeks ago. This, of course, is due to good ol' GB dragging his feet over making up his mind on that suspension. Personally, although I agree that Bettman should start thinking about making a decision on this, I really couldn't care less about what that decision is.

At this point, Bertuzzi has effectively been suspended from hockey for over a year. His detractors might exclaim, "but there was no NHL for him to miss!" Well, no there wasn't, but that's not his fault. (No more than it was the fault of the other NHLPA members, anyway.) He was prevented from playing hockey in Europe at the same time, so one could argue that he's been missing out.

Let's analogize, shall we?

Billy loves eating at McDonald's. But being a bit of a rebel, he also loves throwing twisted-up ketchup packets around the inside of the restaurant so they splatter on the windows. He's kicked out of McDick's for a 365-day period. Now, about four months after that suspension begins, the restaurant is closed for the next 8 months due to oh, say, a lockout of the employees. Billy has been suspended from walking into all McDonald'seses, not just this one; however, this particular joint is the one he frequented. After his suspension is scheduled to end, should it be elongated another 8 months? Of course not. Ketchup on the windows didn't close it down; the lockout did.

Admittedly, the main problem with this metaphor is that it appears to assume that Bertuzzi's suspension was only to be a year long; yet I am merely suggesting that he shouldn't be punished extra because the NHL suspended operations. (You also may be offended that I light-heartedly likened Steve Moore's injury to the misuse of condiments. If that's the case, lighten up, because I also compared the National Hockey League to a poorly-run fast food joint...although that, I suppose, isn't far off the mark.) This analogy is aimed purely at those who are looking at T-Bert's suspension in the context of the current professional hockey landscape in North America.

As far as what the total length of Todd's exile should be, I have no idea. There are some who believe he should only be allowed back if and when Steve Moore returns to the NHL; of course, at the moment it's up in the air whether Moore will play again - let's face it, he didn't knock anybody's socks off with his skill, and he now has a major roadblock to deal with. Thus, these people basically believe that Bertuzzi should never play again. I call this the "Capital Punishment" school of thought, an eye for an eye. But many people - myself included - believe that the goal of a criminal justice system should be to rehabilitate one to the point where they can function as a productive member of society, and accept responsibility and feel remorse for their crimes. Well, Bertuzzi was remorseful from the get-go, and has certainly accepted responsibility for what he did...at this point, you need to ask yourself if it's really such a good thing for the game to keep one of its premier players out of the rink.

This being said, I also don't think that Bertuzzi's suspension should be over just yet, purely because of the catch-22 inherent in my earlier analogy. Though it would be unfair to punish Todd more severely due to the NHL lockout, his sentence still has to act as a deterrent for other potential thugs on the ice. If it doesn't appear to them that Bertuzzi lost any ice time, then they won't see his suspension as particularly serious, and might not think twice about continuing the trend of senseless violence that has escalated since the appearance of the instigator penalty. A two- or three-year debarment might be in order; assuming that the NHL resumes play next year, perhaps the last year of the sentence (in either case) could be slackened so that the power forward could play in any league but the NHL and its immediate affiliates (the AHL, par exemple).

All told, I will at least agree with everyone else that Gary Bettman needs to make a decision, and soon, just because it's one more story I'm tired of hearing about; the sooner the NHL can put this one behind them, the better. I don't know if that many people are even that concerned about just what GB's decision is, as long as he makes one. I'd hate to be in line behind him at McDonald's when he's deciding what he wants for lunch.