Todd Bertuzzi has changed teams four times since March 8, 2004, but one thing has remained constant — when he’s in Denver, he gets booed.
Now that he has returned to the Northwest Division, with the Calgary Flames, he is scheduled to play three times at the Pepsi Center this season. All three of those will come after the Avalanche and Flames play three times in Calgary the first six weeks of the season, with the second meeting tonight at the Saddledome.
When Bertuzzi scored twice two weeks ago to lead the Flames to a 5-4 victory over the Avalanche in Calgary, many Colorado fans seemed to consider that an added indignity on top of the three-game losing streak to open the season.
But nearly five years after Bertuzzi’s attack on Avalanche winger Steve Moore in Vancouver, the remaining Colorado players from the 2003-04 team are willing to put the incident in the rearview mirror. The only Avalanche players on the roster who were with Colorado that season are Joe Sakic, Milan Hejduk, John-Michael Liles and Adam Foote.
The Colorado fans seem to be carrying the grudge much longer than the players — if the players ever had one. Moore, who suffered fractured neck vertebrae, facial abrasions and a concussion that night, hasn’t played an NHL game since. His lawsuit against Bertuzzi and the Canucks remains pending in the Ontario court system.
“That was a long time ago,” Avalanche captain Sakic, Bertuzzi’s teammate on the 2006 Canadian Olympic team, said Monday. “That’s between him and Steve, what’s going on right now. It’s in the courts.”
Sakic said he and his wife, Debbie, were part of group vacation to a Mexico resort that also included Bertuzzi and his wife, plus winger Brad May — who was playing for Vancouver at the time of the incident and joined the Avalanche after the lockout season — and his wife.
“Have we talked about the incident? No, we haven’t really talked about the incident at all,” Sakic said. “We try to stay away from that. It’s going through the process, and it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
Sakic said Bertuzzi is “a real nice guy. I got to know him and his wife, Julie, and their kids. Yeah, obviously, he made a huge mistake, but he’s a good man.”
And what of the Colorado fan reaction?
“That’s part of being a fan, really,” Sakic said. “Guys are going to get booed and fans don’t forget that sort of stuff.”
Liles, a rookie in that 2003-04 season, said: “I honestly haven’t thought about it in a while now. It’s a long time ago, and it’s not really something that I think about. Obviously, you feel bad that Moorsie’s not playing any more, but as far as me making judgments on it, it’s not my place. . . . We see him quite a bit in a few different jerseys, and he’s stated that he feels badly about it, and it’s one of those things you wish didn’t happen, but it did. That’s about all you can say, really.”
Avalanche coach Tony Granato, now in his second stint as head coach, was behind the bench that night and responded angrily to what happened, and that included yelling at Vancouver coach Marc Crawford.
“That happened four and a half years ago, so you have to put it behind you and look forward,” Granato said. “Obviously, he’s a big part of the Calgary Flames and if they’re going to have success, he’s going to play well for them. So it’s our job to not let him be factors in the game, and that’s the way we have to look at it. . . .
“I don’t think you can forget it. It’s an incident that happened that was a big part of our lives and a big part of our hockey lives. So you’re not going to forget it. As far as the forgiving part, I think that’s up to the individual. It’s up to the people who have seen it and been affected by it and how they go about their forgiveness. But, again, that’s something that happened in the past. You try and put it behind you and do what’s right for your hockey team at this point. At this point, that’s do the best we can to make sure he’s not factors in the games.”
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
Avalanche: Goalie Peter Budaj was named the NHL’s second star Monday for last week. He went 3-0-0 with a 1.62 goals- against average and a .941 save percentage. “You can see in his body language and his demeanor that this is the kid that we thought would be our guy,” coach Tony Granato said. “We’re excited about how he handled the first week of the season.” . . . This is a single-game trip before Colorado, riding a five-game winning streak, returns home to face Columbus on Thursday.
Flames: Calgary is coming off a 4-1 road victory over Phoenix on Saturday. . . . Goalie Miikka Kiprusoff is expected to start. . . . Calgary beat Colorado 5-4 at the Pengrowth Saddledome two weeks ago. . . . Flames star Jarome Iginla was named the NHL’s first star of the week after scoring seven points in three games.
SPOTLIGHT ON
Dion Phaneuf: Opposing players and fans hate him, but there is no denying the talent of the young Flames defenseman. Phaneuf hits hardand not always cleanly — but he also takes plenty of retaliatory big hits. He’s strong in his own end and possesses one of the league’s better slap shots.
