RIGHT CALL: STICK IT TO MCSORLEY.

Byline: Kevin Modesti

Tuesday, hockey fans should have been celebrating the 20th anniversary of the greatest moment in the sport's American history.

Instead they were mourning one of the lowest.

On Feb. 22, 1980, we watched the United States Olympic team upset the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, N.Y., on its way to the gold medal, a development that signaled the start of hockey's popularity surge.

On Feb. 22, 2000, we awoke to video replays of the Boston Bruins' Marty McSorley clubbing the Vancouver Canucks' Donald Brashear into unconsciousness, the most vicious act of on-ice violence in years.

Do you believe in irony?

The Miracle on Ice made fans take a fresh look at a sport that for decades was the butt of jokes about its fights.

The Mugging on Ice dredges up memories of that old, dark, best-forgotten era.

By the afternoon after the attack, McSorley had been suspended ``indefinitely'' by the NHL pending a hearing today in New York. Meanwhile, a police investigation was underway, spurred by a Vancouver police officer who attended Monday's game and filed a report.

``We have a situation here where it would appear, or it's been alleged, that there was a fairly vicious attack by one person on another,'' a Vancouver police spokeswoman told the Associated Press, reducing the incident to its essentials.

Only once in NHL history has a player gone to jail for an on-ice offense, when Dino Ciccarelli of the Minnesota North Stars served 24 hours for hitting Luke Richardson of the Toronto Maple Leafs over the head with his stick in 1988.

This time, hockey people are hoping the law-enforcement agencies maintain their traditional hands-off approach to sports violence.

``Leave this stuff on the ice - leave it to the National Hockey League,'' said Canucks general manager Brian Burke, who used to be the NHL official in charge of discipline. ``We don't need the Vancouver Police Department or (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) involved in this.''

But it's up to the NHL to prove we don't need the police to get involved. It's up to the NHL to sock McSorley with a suspension as painful as the crime.

Marty McSorley, 36, is a 6-foot-1, 225-pound Canadian who earned the reputation early in his career as a goon who could also play. He was Wayne Gretzky's bodyguard with the Edmonton Oilers and the Kings. He scored as many as 15 goals in a season.

The fact he had been suspended following fights six times before this, most recently in 1994, drew no particular notice. Especially in Los Angeles, McSorley is best known for taking the illegal-stick penalty in Game 2 of the 1993 Stanley Cup finals that led to the power-play goal that prevented the Kings from taking a two-game lead over the Montreal Canadiens.

That night in 1993, they checked McSorley's stick blade for illegal curvature.

Monday, they were checking it for blood.

Only 2.7 seconds remained in the game when McSorley skated behind Brashear, raised his stick and took a cut worthy of Andre Dawson. His stick struck Brashear in the right temple. Brashear, 28, his helmet dislodged, fell backward and struck his head on the ice. He lay, twitching, on his back, blood leaking from his nose.

Back on his feet in the dressing room, Brashear seemed to have suffered a concussion that will sideline him for two to three weeks.

That's the good news: It's only a concussion.

It doesn't diminish the crime.

Nor does the fact McSorley and Brashear had fought in the early minutes of the Canucks' 5-2 victory, the fact Brashear had fallen on and injured Bruins goalie Byron Dafoe in the first period, or McSorley's immediate apology.

``I'm still in shock at what I did,'' McSorley said after the game, explaining he had meant to goad Brashear into dropping the gloves again. ``That's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to go fight.''

The Canucks' Brad May called the incident ``the worst thing I've ever seen.'' The Canucks' Markus Naslund called the slash ``bad enough to, I think, kill someone. The league has to make an example.''

Boston, 11th in the Eastern Conference and last in the Northeast Division, isn't going to make the playoffs. After the Bruins' game at Edmonton tonight, they'll have 22 games left in the season.

Conveniently, suspending McSorley for the rest of the season, costing him $160,000 in salary, would top the NHL-record 21-day suspension Dale Hunter of the Washington Capitals served for blindsiding Pierre Turgeon of the New York Islanders after a playoff goal in 1993.

Anything less and the question will remain whether the NHL can police itself.

Tuesday was a doubly pivotal day in puck history. It's the day we went to an anniversary party and a hockey game broke out.

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Photo: (color) This television image from ESPN shows Boston's Marty McSorley hitting Donald Brashear, causing Brashear to fall and hit the back of his head on the ice.

Associated Press