Like a skater bracing for a hit along the boards, veteran winger Brad May knew it was coming Monday. In the several weeks since he signed with the Avalanche as an unrestricted free agent, the cacophony of protest has been impossible to miss.
After all, isn’t he the Vancouver forward who mentioned a “bounty” on Steve Moore, two weeks before the Canucks’ Todd Bertuzzi jumped Moore from behind in the March 8, 2004, game in Vancouver?
Didn’t that remark lead to May being one of the defendants in Moore’s pending lawsuit in Denver District Court?
And didn’t the injuries Moore suffered in Bertuzzi’s attack – fractured neck vertebrae and, especially, a concussion – leave Moore’s NHL career at least in doubt, and possibly over?
Eighteen months after the attack, Moore is recuperating and skating in the Toronto area, awaiting the written report on recent tests at the Cleveland Clinic, and hoping to soon come to Denver to work with the Avs’ medical staff.
Bertuzzi recently was reinstated by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and will be able to play for Vancouver this season. And May, whose “bounty” remark in the wake of the Feb. 16, 2004, Canucks-Avs game at the Pepsi Center was cited as one of the justifications for the case being filed in Denver, will make $650,000 this season as the Avs’ fourth-line left wing and enforcer.
“We all understand how regrettable it all was,” May said Monday, when the Avalanche went through physical testing at the Pepsi Center on the eve of training camp. “I’ve played for a lot of years in this league with integrity and honor, and I’m proud to be who I am. I don’t feel bad, but I feel the whole situation is regrettable – regrettable for the individual, for both teams and for hockey in general.”
When he mentioned the “bounty,” did he mean it?
“It was in jest,” May said. “It was regrettable, there’s no question about it.”
May has said the comment was a reference to the satirical movie “Slap Shot.” In the film, Paul Newman, as Charlestown Chiefs player-coach Reg Dunlop, tells a sportscaster he is “placing a personal bounty on the head of Tim McCracken. He’s the coach and chief punk on that Syracuse team. … A hundred bucks of my own money for the first of my men that really nails that creep.”
After Moore’s unpenalized hit on Vancouver captain Markus Naslund in the Feb. 16 game knocked Naslund out of the lineup for three games with a concussion, May told the Vancouver Sun: “There’s definitely a bounty on his head. Clean hit or not, that’s our best player, and you respond. It’s going to be fun when we get him.”
May said Monday his “bounty” remark “was in a one-on-one conversation with (a Vancouver writer), and it wasn’t …” May paused, then added, “I have never acted without honor and integrity. I believe that’s why I’m here. I add something to a locker room. I’m a good teammate. I’ve always been a good teammate. I’m passionate and there’s no question, I’m very, very loyal.”
The pending lawsuit, May said, didn’t make him pause before signing with Colorado. In fact, he said, he had “seven offers” on the first night of the free-agency period and that it was “a no-brainer to come to Colorado.”
He added: “Everything I’ve ever faced has been face on, with integrity. … I’m a straight- up guy. I look people in the eye. I never have walked away on anybody, and this is no different.”
Asked if Bertuzzi should have been reinstated, May said that type of verdict “is way over my head. I’m a player, one of 750 NHLers, and proud to be one of them. The NHL deemed that possible, and that’s an NHL decision.”
May’s new teammates came to his defense.
“Brad is one of the best teammates,” said Avs defenseman Bob Boughner, who played with May at Buffalo. “He’s a guy who sticks up for his teammates, and he answers the bell every night. You can ask anyone who has played with him. He’s the all- time teammate.”
Captain Joe Sakic said Avalanche fans should “give him a chance. He’s a great guy. He said something that after the fact, he regretted. But he didn’t do the crime. Just give him a chance. We’ve all said things in the past that we’ve probably regretted, and you go on.”
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
