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First of all, there is no way that charging Bertuzzi for this with a criminal record is necessary, in fact its ridiculous. The NHL is a full contact sport that tolerates fighting, so it is obviously fully prepared to deal with something that gets out of hand like this.

Bertuzzi had no intention of producing the end result of what happened. Bertuzzi snapped on the ice and there was no reason to do what he did. But think about it, a rookie on your rival team, skates up to your best friend and gives him a viscious elbow to the head giving him a concussion. (Moores actions were much more uncalled for that Bert's, he was just too weak to hurt Naslund badly) Not only is he your best friend he is the leagues leading scorer at the time, which shows how little respect Steve Moore has. Now this stuff happens in hockey but Steve Moore didnt even get a penalty for elbowing, nor did he apologize for it. At that moment every canuck had vowed vengeance.

The next time Colorado and Vancouver met getting Moore was on all of their minds and not on the game, and as result they were blown out 9 to 2. During the game Matt Cooke tried to get retribution ageinst Moore, but ended up losing the fight, making the rest of the canucks even angrier. When Matt Cooke failed to pat Moore back Bertuzzi went after him, at first Bertuzzi was asking Moore for a clean and legal fight but Moore kep mouthing off to bertuzzi and turning his back to him, at this point bertuzzi snapped and punched Moore. Bertuzzi didnt even take off his gloves, so he was more than likely trying to get him to turn around and fight.

The point is Moore did something stupid to piss the Canucks off and then he taunted them about it, only an idiot would bother taking a shift when up by 7 with 8 minutes left, especially when he knew he had an entire team gunning for him.

Most of the people who criticize Bertuzzi have no opinions of their own, the just keep repeating the same "cowardly attack" rants that they hear of ESPN and watching the clip of Bertuzzi punching Moore.

It was stupid and foolish to do what Bertuzzi did, but Moore was asking for it, trying to frustrate Bertuzzi and the canucks even more, and everyone has a breaking point.