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Up Against It

In an exclusive interview Marty McSorley discusses his on-ice assault of Donald Brashear and the resulting suspension, the longest in NHL history

By Kostya Kennedy

Issue date: November 20, 2000

The embodiment of NHL evil has blue eyes, blond hair and cheeks that are pink from the sun. He wears a silver ring on the little finger of his right hand, and he eats salad and quiche for lunch. He's 37 years old, stands 6'1", weighs 235 pounds, and his name is Martin James McSorley, though he's better known to fans, league executives and Canadian prosecutors as Marty.

McSorley lives with his girlfriend, Leanne Schuster, in a three-bedroom condominium just off the shores of Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles. Besides eating right, he works hard to keep in shape. Last Thursday night, for example -- 58 hours after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman extended McSorley's indefinite suspension to one year, or until Feb. 21, 2001 -- he played pickup hockey at a rink in El Segundo. He strapped on the Boston Bruins helmet that nine months ago he'd worn as a teammate of Raymond Bourque, and joined a collection of firemen, policemen and out-of work actors. Even after his team had lost 4-2, McSorley stayed on the ice with the last stragglers, chatting and circling about, not wanting to get off. "No matter what happens," McSorley says, "I will always have hockey."

Whether McSorley skates again in the NHL, where he has played for the past 17 seasons, is another matter. At around midday on Nov. 7 the phone rang in McSorley's kitchen. It was Bettman. "Marty," he said, "I have some news that I don't think you're going to like." The call came 20 days after McSorley had requested immediate reinstatement to the NHL. He'd been banned last February after striking Canucks forward Donald Brashear in the head with his stick during a game in Vancouver. The incident was so heinous that in addition to the league ban, McSorley was prosecuted in provincial court in British Columbia. On Oct. 6, after a nonjury trial, Judge William Kitchen found McSorley guilty of "assaulting Donald Brashear with a weapon, a hockey stick."

That ruling stung McSorley but had little tangible impact on his life. He served no jail time, and he's not on probation. In sentencing McSorley, Kitchen issued a "conditional discharge," which stipulates only that for 18 months McSorley must not "engage in any sporting event where Donald Brashear is on the opposition." If McSorley doesn't violate that condition, his criminal record will be wiped clean in the spring of 2002.

Now, with Bettman's call, McSorley's career hung in the balance. Bettman and McSorley spoke for some 45 minutes as McSorley, in gym clothes, leaned on his kitchen counter. "Marty was calm, as he usually is," says Schuster. "I couldn't tell by his reaction what the ruling was. Then, while they were talking, the league faxed us the decision. It was eight pages. I went straight to the conclusion."

Bettman banned McSorley for "one calendar year," by far the longest suspension for an on-ice infraction in NHL history. The previous record was in 1993 when Bettman suspended Washington Capitals forward Dale Hunter for 21 games -- or roughly two months -- for a blind-side hit on the New York Islanders' Pierre Turgeon while Turgeon was celebrating a goal in a playoff game. Turgeon suffered a separated shoulder and missed the remainder of the playoffs; Brashear not only sustained a grade 3 concussion but also a grand mal seizure immediately after hitting the ice. McSorley, a free agent, can now sign with an NHL club. He may not train with a team until after Jan. 1, however, and may not appear in a game until Feb. 21, the anniversary of his hit on Brashear.

While McSorley says only that he is "disappointed" in Bettman's ruling, his lawyer, Paul Kelly of Boston, speaks more pointedly. "Should Marty have been suspended? Absolutely," Kelly says. "Should he have been suspended for what amounts to 82 regular-season games, plus playoffs, plus training camp and preseason? That's absolutely unfair."

You've probably seen the footage. The video clip of the blow led not only sports highlights shows that evening but also late news telecasts across North America. McSorley, skating through the neutral zone, approaches Brashear, who is gliding without the puck, from behind. With a quick, hard swing of his stick, McSorley clubs Brashear on the side of his face. Brashear's 6'2", 225-pound body drops like a sack of stones. His helmet springs loose and, upon landing, the back of his skull hits the ice. Brashear lies motionless for a moment and then begins to convulse. He would be carried off on a stretcher, spend the night in a hospital and miss 20 games.

Even against the backdrop of other violent acts in hockey -- and scores of them occur each season -- this was extraordinary. The moment Brashear went down, the slash became the defining moment of McSorley's long career. "If McSorley plays another game in this league, then this league is a [bleeping] joke," Canucks defenseman Mattias Ohlund told The Vancouver Sun after the game. "It was the worst thing I've ever seen. That guy [McSorley] should be treated the same as if he tried to kill a guy on the street."

British Columbian prosecutors felt strongly enough to charge him with assault with a weapon. McSorley's slash became the first on-ice NHL misdeed to be tried in court since 1988, when Dino Ciccarelli of the Minnesota North Stars spent a day in jail for hitting Luke Richardson of the Toronto Maple Leafs twice in the head with his stick, causing no injuries to Richardson. In McSorley's case Kitchen's finding of guilt rested in his judgment that "Brashear was struck as intended."

McSorley hates that characterization. He says he never meant to hit Brashear in the head. He says he was aiming for a shoulder in an attempt to goad Brashear into a fight. In fact a slow-motion replay of the video shows that McSorley's stick did brush the top of Brashear's right shoulder before crashing into his face. Last week McSorley spoke with SI in his first extended discussions of the incident since his conviction.

"Yes, I meant to slash him," says McSorley. "Did I mean to hurt him with my stick? No.

"Look, I take responsibility for what happened. I feel bad that Donald got hurt. But when somebody says that I intentionally struck him in the head with my stick, I have an issue with that, because that goes to the core of who I am and the player I've been over the years."

McSorley's 3,381 career penalty minutes are the third most in NHL history. Before the Brashear incident he had been suspended seven times by the league for acts ranging from cross-checking an opponent in the forehead to gouging a rival's eye during a fight to spearing. McSorley is a thug. "I have no halo," he says.

Yet in the vigilante world of the NHL it is no paradox that many executives, coaches and players still respect McSorley. During his prime he was one of the best fighters in the game. As Wayne Gretzky's teammate for three seasons with the Edmonton Oilers and another eight with the Los Angeles Kings, he regularly punched out players who dared rough up the Great One. McSorley also taught himself to play well. Though he possessed marginal talent and was never drafted, his unwavering work ethic enabled him to develop into one of the league's better defensemen. He won the Stanley Cup with the Oilers in 1987 and '88 and went to the finals with the Kings in '93. In 1990-91 he tied for the league's best plus-minus rating. McSorley takes pride in his hard-earned ability to pass, puckhandle and defuse oncoming rushes, yet he harbors no illusions. Would he have reached the NHL without his fighting ability? "I would not have made Junior A," he says.

No one understands the enforcer's role better than McSorley, and no one understands better why, on the night of Feb. 21, he was sent onto the ice in the final seconds of a game the Bruins trailed 5-2. According to McSorley's trial testimony, coach Pat Burns had gathered the Bruins before the game to address Vancouver's toughness, adding, "Some of you guys might have to fight."

The events leading up to McSorley's fateful blow seem more suited to a Saturday-morning cartoon show than to an NHL game: 1) On his first shift McSorley clearly lost a fight to Brashear, who then played to the crowd and embarrassed McSorley by dusting off his hands; 2) later in the first period McSorley cross-checked Brashear to provoke him into a rematch, but Brashear didn't bite; after the whistle McSorley was assessed a 10-minute misconduct penalty; 3) while McSorley was serving that penalty, Brashear was battling for position in front of the net and fell on top of Bruins goalie Byron Dafoe, injuring Dafoe's knee; and 4) in the third period Brashear skated near the Boston bench and taunted the Bruins by flexing his muscles. After that, according to McSorley's testimony, Burns yelled at his players, "Are we going to take that, or are we going to stand up for ourselves?"

With less than a minute remaining in the game, Canucks coach Marc Crawford sent Brashear onto the ice. Immediately, as McSorley testified, Bruins assistant Jacques Laperriere said to him, "Mac, Mac, you're up. You're going. You're going." By any educated reckoning the implication was that the coaches wanted McSorley to fight Brashear. (Laperriere, who is still with Boston, didn't return calls for comment, while Burns, who was fired last month by the Bruins, could not be reached.)

McSorley was playing with a battered left shoulder that he could barely raise, an injury that he says limited his control over the stick. (Bruins' trainer Don DelNegro testified in court about McSorley's ailment.) When he stepped onto the ice, he was desperate to fight Brashear, not only to do what he thought was his coaches' bidding, but also to help save his career. Weakened by a long string of injuries, his effectiveness had been dwindling in recent years. He was on a one-year contract, and he was playing for his fifth team in five seasons. McSorley knew that the fighting ability that had gotten him into the league was what would keep him there. He had to stand up to Brashear but had little time to engage him before the game ended.

With three seconds remaining, he came upon Brashear, whose back was turned. Then McSorley swung his stick. "Marty plays on the edge," says the Philadelphia Flyers' feisty right wing, Rick Tocchet. "That's his role. He got too close to the edge, and a bad thing happened. It was bad, but anyone who says that those kind of things never happen in hockey, well, that's just bull."

For all the impact that hockey's culture of violence had upon that night, the event, finally, comes to this: Intentionally or not, McSorley bludgeoned Brashear, who might have died. "I still get headaches; I still get tired," Brashear said by phone last Saturday night from Vancouver, where he had just assisted on a goal in the Canucks' 5-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues. "I want to put this thing in the past, but it keeps following me. You never recover 100 percent from a thing like that."

"Donald never asked for this to happen to him, and I bear him no ill will," says McSorley. "I'm not comfortable with what happened, but I am comfortable with what I intended to do." The two have not spoken since the blow, nor do they intend to.

The McSorley matter is the highest-profile disciplinary case of Bettman's eight years as commissioner, and he has seized upon it to render a punishment unprecedented in its severity. "If this is interpreted as raising the bar," Bettman says, "that's all right with me."

It's not all right with everyone. "Marty should have been reinstated last week," Ian Pulver, associate counsel of the NHL Players' Association, said on Friday. Then Pulver, stressing that he was not speaking on behalf of the union, alleged that Bettman may have had a motive stemming from McSorley's activism during the 1994 owners' lockout. "Marty was a vocal leader on behalf of the players in '94, and he was involved in many disputes with people on the other side, including Gary," says Pulver. "This probably has an impact on Gary's dealings with Marty."

Bettman calls Pulver's allegation "insulting."

Hockey players have been clubbing one another since the game began, and there have been numerous indefensible fouls during Bettman's regime. McSorley's punishment resulted partly from his status as a repeat offender and partly because of what his hit on Brashear wrought. In the words of New York Rangers general manager Glen Sather, "The image of Brashear lying on that ice had a lasting effect on all of us."

Bettman, who rejects the suggestion that McSorley's court appearance put "hockey on trial," takes the opportunity to make a larger point. "This decision will constitute an important statement about the game itself, and, more specifically, why parents should be comfortable knowing that their children can play hockey," Bettman writes in his ruling.

"That really makes me shake my head," says McSorley. "I'm with kids all the time."

McSorley had surgery to repair his left shoulder last March, and since then he has kept himself in excellent condition. While some players have distanced themselves from him, many would welcome him back. "We treat him the same as we always did," says Kings defenseman Rob Blake, who skates and plays beach volleyball with McSorley. "A lot of us would like him to come back and end on a good note."

Whether he would be effective after missing a full year is uncertain. Would any team take the public relations gamble of signing him? While several general managers -- including Sather and Boston's Mike O'Connell -- speak favorably of McSorley's ability, they stop short of saying they would sign him. "Marty's more melancholy than he used to be," says John Silva, 38, a neighbor of McSorley's. "You'll be talking to him on the street, and you can see he's distracted."

As much as McSorley loves to Rollerblade for miles along the beach or spend a quiet evening with Schuster or punish his body at a gym in Hermosa, he's still the farm boy from Hamilton, Ont., who played his first games on a frozen canal and who would give anything for a few more NHL shifts. "I'd love to play again," he says, "but if I can't, I'll go on. I believe that my peers and the people in the game understand what happened that night. What anyone else thinks, I can't control."

Issue date: November 20, 2000

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