The NHL has officially joined Mike Tyson and boxing when Ottawa Senators’ Jarkko Ruutu put a bite on an opposing player last night, literally. Although Ruutu denies clamping down on Buffalo Sabres Andrew Peters’ thumb, watch the video and join many of us who believe the contrary.

The NHL has mastered the art of burying news like this.

Recently, they received vicious ridicule from the mainstream media after allowing their poster boy Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby to walk away unscathed for attacking Atlanta Thrashers player Boris Valabik from behind and punching him in the genitals. Watch that video on Deadspin here.

Crosby got away with his cowardly act, skating away with a two-minute penalty and no discipline from the league but Ruutu may actually have to pay. Unlike Crosby, Ruutu is scheduled to meet with the NHL and explain the incident.

Hockey is somehow avoiding the negative exposure it deserves, maybe because so few care to watch the sport. How many of you readers are even aware of NHL former All Star Patrick Roy sending his son on an assault rampage in the QMJHL, an incident so severe it resulted in criminal charges?

While Roy and both of his sons were suspended for lengthy periods, the NHL ignored the incidents and allowed Montreal to include Roy in a heavily-publicized ceremony earlier this season that actually featured retiring the French hothead’s jersey. The Montreal fans responded by booing when the Roy family walked onto the ice.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has gotten away with brushing violent and classless acts under the rug for years now but this may come to a close sooner than later since the death of a minor league player occurred in Canada last month, a death caused from a hockey fight.

Steve Cardwell, a team official related to that incident, explained later, ”At the time it looked like so many other fights that anybody connected with hockey would have watched over the last number of years.” Cardwell went on to say, ”If you lose just one life and you don’t learn from it, then we’re all making a big mistake.”
How true that is and what has the NHL done since that incident, nothing but let the guys play and let the guys continue to fight.

Crosby’s low-blows went ignored without a slap on his pinky and the last time I looked, the death in Canada appears to be avoiding any aggressive investigation or charges.

You have to wonder what Sean Avery is thinking right now.
Bettman had the audacity to suspend the pesky forward from Dallas for making a crude remark during an interview concerning an ex girlfriend. Avery received a suspension more severe than many other players have received for performing violent assaults with their sticks on other players on the ice.

The verbal messages the NHL makes during their premeditated press conferences sound wholesome and family- oriented and go something like this, “We are a classy league and it is a privilege to play in it” and “The league will not tolerate actions like Avery’s comment”.

While fans and players repeat those comments, spreading the news about how the NHL and its players are a class act, the league’s actions appear to contradict their statements.

Even after a death, the NHL and other leagues continue to allow fighting, in fact fighting majors have statistically increased this year in the NHL, how many tickets has that sold, Mr. Bettman?

I’ve always been one to believe what I see not what I hear.

Let’s see if the league brushes this latest joke of an act that Ruutu stole out of Mike Tyson’s playbook under the rug, the same way they did Crosby’s. And more importantly, how will they respond to the damage and potential long-term injury or death that fighting may cause to its players.

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