Taking One For The Team Bertsch Finds His Role On Chiefs Team Full Of Role Players

On too many nights the fight was drained out of him before he showed up at the rink, when Jay Bertsch was playing hockey between bouts of nausea.

All the symptoms pointed to a concussion, possibly a series of concussions, and for parts of three seasons the assistant captain and right wing of the Spokane Chiefs suffered.

“It didn’t matter where I got hit or sometimes even how hard, I’d get a migraine headache,” Bertsch said as the Chiefs prepared for tonight’s 7 o’clock Western Hockey League game with the Kelowna Rockets. “A hit or a punch to the head and I’d get sick.”

There were nights on the ice when his head pounded, the eyes blurred, when he was dizzy and disoriented. He wondered if there wasn’t something seriously wrong.

Fears were put to rest last winter by a Spokane neurologist who threw out the concussion angle and treated Bertsch for trauma-induced migraines.

Three pills a day had a wondrous effect.

The world became a better place when the headaches stopped.

“It totally eliminated the migraines,” said Bertsch, the drafted property of the NHL Colorado Avalanche. “There was some worrying going on. We thought, another concussion and I could lose all my motor skills.

“It started when I was 16. For three or four days after one I’d be sick. You get up too quick and see stars. Now I can just play. Before, I was worrying about surviving.”

Able to take as well as throw a punch, Bertsch has assumed the tough-guy role.

The enforcer is a criticized, but entrenched, part of the game, the hockey version of nuclear deterrence. You have the bomb, they think twice about going to war.

Tempers do boil over in a collision sport, but not every hockey fight is a burst of spontaneous emotional combustion.

A fight is retaliation, intimidation, protection. Sometimes it panders to the fan who pays to see blood spilled. Players and coaches are universal in the belief that a fight is a motivator. Like it or not, it’s part of the game.

There is no WHL heavyweight champ here this year, no Kevin Sawyer, no Kerry Toporowski, no single enforcer. Instead, there’s strength in numbers. As different stars come out on different nights, so do different fighters, although Bertsch is usually the first to drop the gloves.

He starts on the Chiefs’ hard-checking first line with Dmitri Leonov and Darren Sinclair. Sinclair and Leonov are already into double figures in points, and Bertsch is not without skill.

Scoring is not his role on a team of role-players.

“Our line doesn’t score many goals, but we shut down (Mark) Deyell (of Saskatoon) the other night, and we’ve shut down (Terry) Ryan of Tri-City,” Bertsch said.

The enforcer’s role is a bonus, and not always easy to slip into.

“You do it for the team, not for yourself,” Bertsch said. “Nobody likes to fight. You stick your neck out because you want to for the team. Sometimes you have a blast doing it. Sometimes it’s tough.”

Bertsch started on a club-record pace in penalty minutes, but that’s begun to level off. His 65 minutes in the penalty box put him on target for a regular-season total of 425 - more than Kevin Sawyer served in any of his three seasons here but less than Toporowski’s club record of 505 penalty minutes in the ‘90-91 season.

“I hope to have at least 250 to 300 minutes this year, just because that’s the way I have to play to be successful,” said Bertsch, a Sawyer protege.

“Kevin took time after practice last year to show me stuff, knowing that he wasn’t coming back here this year,” Bertsch said. “We talked about how he dealt with some of the things I’m dealing with now. When everyone looks at you as the fighter and you don’t win, it’s tough to deal with. Maybe I’m not as tough as Sawyer, but I try to fill his shoes. He did his job very well. I hope by the end of the season that I can establish myself as well as he did.”

There was a patience in Sawyer’s brutality that Bertsch has to learn.

“Most of the time I don’t win but I don’t lose,” he said. “I mostly stay alive.”

He’s smiling.

Because he’ll take one for the club - and give one as well - he wears the A as an assistant captain.

Bertsch’s face is unmarked, but an ugly gash runs up his right hand, the reminder of a skate that severed a tendon, leaving a cut that required more than 100 stitches to repair.

Nobody gets out of this game unscathed, although not everybody is saddled with the dirty work that Bertsch tackles.

“My dad (Mel Bertsch, of Lethbridge, Alberta) sometimes doesn’t understand,” he said. “It’s tough for parents to understand why their son isn’t scoring goals, why he’s out there scrapping. It’s tough for my mom to come to a game when I’m in the penalty box for 14 minutes. That’s hard for them to watch.

“But everybody has a role,” Bertsch added, “and they respect that.”

Respect, as critical and elusive as it can be, is No. 2 in the big picture.

Jay Bertsch, finally, has his health.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo