Dear NHL, congratulations on your epic fail.

The following is an open letter to the NHL.

Dear NHL,

Please note that I'm neither a Penguins fan nor an Islanders fan.  I'm a hockey fan.  But I'm not sure I can continue to support the NHL after the way it completely and utterly failed, in every conceivable way, during and after the game between the Penguins and Islanders on February 11, 2011.

I literally cannot find words strong enough to convey just how badly the NHL conducted itself.  And that includes everyone: players, coaches, officials, and not least of all the league's disciplinarian.

The officials acted as though they'd never done a professional game before.  It was a farce, like some Pro Wrestling event, where the refs play their clownish role and allow themselves to be distracted while someone gets hit over the head with a folding chair.

The players earn the majority of the disdain.  Matt Martin didn't fight Talbot, he sucker punched him in a blatant attempt to injure him severely.  The fact that he did it on frozen water doesn't redefine his actions; it doesn't magically turn felony aggravated assault into 'sport'.  Trevor Gillies... wow, where do I start?  He exhibited classic criminal psychopathic behavior.  And there was absolutely nothing professional or athletic about Michael Haley's contributions.

And just so this doesn't sound completely lop-sided in favor of the Penguins... Even if they actually held the moral high ground in this episode, any team who keeps perennial hooligans like Rupp and Cooke on the roster is complicit in the league's problems.  But make no mistake, it is indeed the Islanders whose heads should be hanging lowest in shame.

The worst part, though, and the thing that has me brushing up against my threshold of tolerance for the league's failings, is the abject mockery of discipline and sportsmanship administered in the aftermath by Colin Campbell.  I reject all the usual platitudes that excuse Campbell's inconsistency and spinelessness.  Please change the title of his job, because whatever it is he's doing, it sure isn't disciplining.

How, in the holy name of all sportsdom, does Matt Martin earn merely a 4 game suspension?  He assaulted another person without provocation, completely outside the bounds of the sport.  His actions were totally inexcusable and warrant no less than a suspension through the end of the season.  Yeah, you read that right: the entire rest of the season.  And that's being kind.  Honestly the number that popped into my head was '50 games'.  Consider this: what if he was just slightly better at his goonery and connected the sucker punch that he threw?  What if Talbot's career was ended?  What if his ability to function as a normal human being was ruined?

In short, what if Martin is Bertuzzi and Talbot is Moore?  That thought should spook you.  It should make you pucker up and fear for the very existence of the league.  How many of those kinds of reprehensible episodes do you think the league can absorb?  Well, unless you want to find out, you'd better stop tolerating them.

I know what you're thinking though: "Oh, this wasn't as bad as a that.  You're comparing apples to oranges."

Am I?  You tell me what the difference is between the two, that justifies giving Martin an impotent little slap on the wrist.  Especially when Bertuzzi actually got off easy.  Every time he steps on the ice in an NHL game it's a huge neon sign proclaiming the league's disregard for both sportsmanship and the safety of its ONE AND ONLY asset: the players.  Bertuzzi should have never been allowed to earn another dollar doing anything affiliated with the NHL, or frankly with hockey at any level.  Being a professional athlete is a privilege.  Privileges can be lost.  It won't make them destitute.  They'll just have to go do something else for a living, like every other person on the planet.

So a 4 game suspension for Martin is just a joke.  It's absurd.  It's insulting.  But worst of all, it's a crystal clear message of condonation.  There is absolutely no place for what Martin did, and there should be absolutely no tolerance for it.  A 4 game suspension says, "This is marginally unacceptable behavior, please don't do it too often."  The message should have been, "This is totally unacceptable, under every conceivable circumstance, and you've just lost the privilege of participating in the NHL, for a very long time."

And please explain how Haley escapes from his oafish antics untarnished?  What, I guess anyone can just stroll down and fight goalies now, is that it?  Well if I'm a coach I know what I'm doing the next time I play my division rival: exactly what Capuano and Snow did, yank up some no-talent, ham-fisted, throwaway thug from the minors and sic him on the opposing goalie.  Playoffs, here we come!  Sadly, you instead lob a rote 10 game suspension at Godard, ironically the stiffest penalty of the entire affair!  I guess when Campbell can just look up something in the book and say, "Hey, it's not my decision.. it's the rule!" then he finally discovers the guts to act the part of stern guardian to the league's high morals.

I have a 2 year old son who will very soon be starting his (hopefully) life-long love affair with sports.  I'd been imagining him on the ice soon.  But the utterly loathsome behavior that was on display, and the irresponsibly soft reaction from the league, has me seriously questioning whether I want my son to play hockey.  The NHL is steward to the sport's reputation, and that reputation just moved a lot closer to the kind of thing that I would prefer to completely exclude from my life, and that of my family and friends, and any decent human being.