Bertuzzi enters guilty plea
Vancouver Canucks player Todd Bertuzzi pleaded guilty to assault Wednesday, more than nine months after slugging Colorado forward Steve Moore from behind and driving his face into the ice during a game.
A lawyer acting on behalf of Moore asked the judge to delay sentencing until January to give his client a chance to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, to make a statement. Moore was hospitalized with three fractured vertebrae, facial cuts, post-concussion symptoms and amnesia.
Judge Herb Weitzel said he would decide later about when he would deliver his sentence.
Bertuzzi was suspended indefinitely by the NHL, missing 13 regular-season games and seven postseason games while losing nearly $502,000 in salary. On Friday, he was barred from playing in Europe by the International Ice Hockey Federation because of his violent conduct.
Prosecutor Garth Loeppky told the court he would request a conditional discharge with no criminal record for Bertuzzi following the guilty plea.
Tim Danson, Moore’s Toronto-based attorney, said he became aware of the deal on Monday, and neither he, nor Moore, had a chance to travel to Vancouver to address the court. Instead, Danson hired a Vancouver lawyer to ask for the sentencing delay.
Statements from Moore and his parents were expected to be read into the record.
Before the plea bargain, Bertuzzi faced a maximum of 18 months in prison. Bertuzzi, who had been scheduled to stand trial Jan. 17, was accompanied in court by his wife Julie and Canucks captain Marcus Naslund.
Loeppky said prosecutors would have been unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bertuzzi’s punch ended Moore’s NHL career.
“If his career is over, the Crown can’t prove that,” Loeppky said.
Loeppky said Moore still has symptoms of post-concussion syndrome, but spinal damage isn’t a factor.
Bettman sets meeting with board
The NHL board of governors will meet next month, when commissioner Gary Bettman could seek permission to call off the 2004-05 season.
Top officials from the 30 clubs will gather in New York on Jan. 14 with Bettman, the league confirmed. If a collective bargaining agreement hasn’t been reached with the players’ association by then, the lockout will probably cause the cancellation of the 2004-05 season.
Bettman has so far resisted announcing a drop-dead date to call off the entire season.
“I can’t confirm any particular agenda for that meeting,” Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer, said in an e-mail. “I think it would be premature to do that, and quite frankly, unfair to the process.”
When the group got together on Sept. 15, Bettman was given the go-ahead to impose the lockout.
Bettman has remained steadfast that he is committed to making the right deal that will provide cost certainty to clubs. If that agreement comes in time to play a respectable season, then the league will do so.
“The calendar is not an issue. It’s about making the right deal,” Bettman said earlier this month.
The lockout has reached 98 days and has forced the cancellation of 470 regular-season games and the 2005 All-Star game.