THE WRITING ON (AND OFF) THE WALL NHL TAKING SLAP SHOT IN FACE FROM OUTSIDERS.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

For that blind-side, vertebrae-crunching hit he laid on Colorado Avalanche rookie Steve Moore almost a week ago, Vancouver Canucks star Todd Bertuzzi should be led to the gallows, put in the stocks, drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered, rubbed down with an oaken towel, stoned, flogged, lambasted, horsewhipped, blackballed, bowstrung, thwacked, walloped, admonished, castigated, castrated, and, if possible, taken over his father's knee after a stern lecture.

If Bertuzzi ever does it again, he should be dealt with more severely.

It's not like we're about to light our torches and join the neighbors running up the street toward the Frankenstein condo after watching another clip of the hit from the ninth-different angle during a pledge break on the local PBS channel.

It's just that, had Bertuzzi's retaliatory hit on Moore not done so much physical damage, you think every yack-show host in America and Canada would be so insistent about suggesting just punishments for the league to consider?

Had the game not been televised, who outside of the hockey community would have even noticed, or cared?

Had this happened in any other sport, would it have created such a venomous reaction?

At least the NHL acted quickly, and wisely temporarily, by giving Bertuzzi an indefinite suspension, which will cost him at least $500,000 and maybe his career. The league will wait to see just how long it takes Moore to get back into uniform before acting any further. Fair enough.

But for some, that can't be the end of it. Bertuzzi, just like Marty McSorley four years ago or Dave Forbes years before that, needs to be made an example of, and they're rifling through anything from the Yellow Pages to Dostoyevsky's ``Crime and Punishment'' for clues as to what needs to be done here.

Honestly, they don't know puck.

The sport definitely is shaken by all this, and a thorough review of the way it determines fines and suspensions would be a positive thing to come out of this latest mess.

One of the better suggestions is that Bertuzzi's eventual suspension shouldn't officially be served until later - if it's a year, then start it when Moore does come back.

Another is that the discipline process be more open to the public, and that more clear-cut criteria be established so those non-hockey followers can understand how things work.

That's because it's those who have been around the game and make it their livelihood know better how to interpret on-ice activity, police their own and dish out fitting penalties, whether or not the local Barney Fifes deem it necessary to butt in with subpoenas a blazin'.

``Why are we always punished as a league when this happens?'' asked Barry Melrose, the former Kings coach who has the public forum to respond to this as he did during Saturday's national regional telecast on ABC.

``Why is it OK to throw a baseball at a player's head be part of the game? You spear a guy over the middle with your helmet and that's hard football. A race car driver can bump into someone going 200 miles an hour - that's being an aggressive driver.

``It's OK in other sports, but hockey gets ripped every time something like this happens. I'll match our players' character against any other player in any other sport any day of the week and I guarantee your mother would rather have her daughter marry a hockey player than anybody else.''

Bill Clement, another former player and current TV analyst, says he's upset by all the ``cynics who have come out of the woodwork to smash our sport, especially when it needs it the least,'' and actually suggested that if more game fighting was allowed and the so-called ``tough guys'' were able to enforce the way they used to, there'd be fewer ``acts of gratuitous violence, or the thugging and mugging that we saw.''

Don't expect Katie Couric commenting on the Bertuzzi video clip on ``The Today Show'' to grasp that kind of logic.

The NHL, as well as its core fans, always will embrace the rough nature of the game. During one of its league's own promos on the Kings-Sharks telecast Saturday, there was Keifer Sutherland trying to explain a few rules. ``This is a bone-jarring, clean hit,'' he says as a couple of players take turns putting their shoulders into an opposing player.

``Yeah, it's aggressive,'' comedian Denis Leary adds, ``and I like it.''

So do we. Just so long as it doesn't cross the line, it's in the proper context, and the phrase ``aggravated assault'' doesn't cloud everyone's better Medieval-sounding judgment.

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, box

Photo:

(1) It seems everybody has an opinion on what to do with bad guy Todd Bertuzzi, yet not everybody with an opinion is qualified.

Chuck Stoody/Associated Press

(2) Dale Jenkins picture, with daughter Theresa Mansfield

(3) JOHN ZIMMERMAN

(4) O.J. SIMPSON

(5) TODD BERTUZZI

(6) no caption (Frank McCourt)

(7) - Phil Martelli, St. Joseph's basketball coach

Box:

Sunday PUNCH