Violence in ice hockey

History

Reports investigating violence

On-ice incidents resulting in charges

• 1905 – Allan Loney was charged with manslaughter in the on-ice clubbing death of Alcide Laurin. Loney claimed self-defence, and was found not guilty.
• 1907 – Ottawa Hockey Club players Harry Smith, Alf Smith and Charles Spittal were charged with assault after beating Montreal Wanderers players Hod Stuart, Ernie "Moose" Johnson and Cecil Blachford with their sticks. Harry Smith was acquitted while Spittal and Alf Smith were each fined $20.
• 1907 – Ottawa Victorias player Charles Masson was charged with manslaughter after Cornwall player Owen McCourt died of a head wound sustained in a brawl. Masson was found not guilty on the grounds that there was no way to know which blow had killed McCourt.
• 1908 – Charles Spittal arrested for knocking out Oren Frood of Pembroke on January 17, 1908. Charge was withdrawn on January 20, 1908.
• 1910 – Rusty Crawford, while a member of the Prince Albert Mintos, assaulted Reginald Brehaut of the Saskatoon Strathconas in a game in Saskatoon on January 11, 1910. Crawford was later found guilty of assault on January 19 in a Saskatoon city police court and fined $5 and costs.
• 1912 – Sprague Cleghorn of the Montreal Wanderers pleaded guilty in a Toronto court of assaulting Newsy Lalonde of the Montreal Canadiens with his stick in a pre-season exhibition game at the Arena Gardens in Toronto on December 21, 1912. Cleghorn was fined $50 by Judge Morgan on December 28.
• 1915 – A riot broke out at the end of a game on January 2, 1915 between Ottawa College and the Cleveland Athletic Club at the Elysium Arena in Cleveland, and Ottawa College goaltender Vincent Doran was arrested on a charge for assaulting Cleveland player Elmer Irving. Irving refused to prosecute and the case was dropped in a Cleveland police court on January 4.
• 1916 – Skene Ronan of the Montreal Canadiens assaulted Alf Skinner of the Toronto Blueshirts in a NHA between the two clubs on January 22, 1916 which had him arrested by police and taken to the Agnes Street station in Toronto, although he was later released on $200 bail. The incident went to trial and Ronan was acquitted of the charge on January 31 before Judge Winchester in Toronto, with Canadiens manager George Kennedy acting as a witness for the defense.
• 1918 – Joe Hall of the Montreal Canadiens and Alf Skinner of the Toronto Arenas were both arrested after an NHL game on January 28, 1918 after they had hit each other violently with their sticks. Hall and Skinner appeared in a Toronto court together on January 29 and both were released after being handed a suspended sentence.
• 1922 – Sprague Cleghorn of the Montreal Canadiens injured three Ottawa Senators players in a game on February 1, leading Ottawa police to offer to arrest him.
• 1969 – In a pre-season game held in Ottawa, Ted Green of the Boston Bruins and Wayne Maki of the St. Louis Blues engaged in a violent, stick-swinging brawl. A fractured skull and brain damage caused Green to miss the entire 1969–70 season. The NHL suspended Maki for 30 days and Green for 13 games. Both men were acquitted in court.
• 1975 – Dan Maloney of the Detroit Red Wings was charged with assault causing bodily harm after he attacked Brian Glennie of the Toronto Maple Leafs from behind. In exchange for a no-contest plea, Maloney did community service work and was banned from playing in Toronto for two seasons.
• 1975 – Police charged Boston Bruins player Dave Forbes with aggravated assault after a fight with Henry Boucha of the Minnesota North Stars. After a nine-day trial ended with a hung jury, charges against Forbes were dropped. Boucha suffered blurred vision from the incident and never fully recovered.
• 1976 – Philadelphia Flyers players Joe Watson, Mel Bridgman, Don Saleski and Bob "Hound" Kelly were charged with assault after using their hockey sticks as weapons in a violent playoff game between the Flyers and the Toronto Maple Leafs in which fans had been taunting the Flyers players and spitting at them. Bridgman was acquitted, but the other three Flyers were found guilty of simple assault.
• 1976 – Calgary Cowboys forward Rick Jodzio plead guilty to a charge of assault following a cross-check to the head of Quebec Nordiques player Marc Tardif during the World Hockey Association playoffs. The hit led to a 20-minute bench clearing brawl.
• 1977 – Dave "Tiger" Williams of the Toronto Maple Leafs hit the Pittsburgh Penguins' Dennis Owchar with his stick. He was charged with assault, but acquitted.
• 1982 – Jimmy Mann of the Winnipeg Jets left the bench and sucker-punched Pittsburgh Penguin Paul Gardner, breaking Gardner's jaw in two places. Mann was fined $500 and given a suspended sentence in Winnipeg.
• 1988 – Dino Ciccarelli hit Maple Leafs defenceman Luke Richardson with his stick. Charged and convicted of assault, he was sentenced to one day in jail and fined $1,000.
• 1992 – Enrico Ciccone of the IHL's Kalamazoo Wings was arrested on a battery charge after San Diego Gulls photographer Essy Ghavameddini was cut and received a deep bruise below his left eye that required stitches. Ciccone assaulted him after entering the penalty box where Ghavameddini was photographing the game from.
• 1998 – Jesse Boulerice of the Plymouth Whalers was suspended for the rest of the playoffs after violently swinging his stick at Guelph Storm forward Andrew Long. Boulerice was charged with assault as a result of the incident.
• 2000 – Marty McSorley of the Boston Bruins hit Vancouver Canuck Donald Brashear in the head with his stick in the waning moments of the game, after losing a fight to Brashear earlier in the game. McSorley was convicted of assault with a weapon and given an 18-month conditional discharge.
• 2004 – In the Todd Bertuzzi–Steve Moore incident, Bertuzzi of the Vancouver Canucks sucker-punched Moore of the Colorado Avalanche in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. The pair then fell to the ice with Bertuzzi's weight crushing Moore face-first into the ice, followed by several players from both teams further piling onto the mêlée. Moore sustained three fractured vertebrae, a grade three concussion, vertebral ligament damage, stretching of the brachial plexus nerves and facial lacerations. Bertuzzi was charged by police and given a conditional discharge after pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm. His suspension resulted in a loss of $500,000 in pay and the Canucks were fined $250,000. Bertuzzi was re-instated in 2005, after a 20 game suspension and an international ban during the 2004-05 lockout season. A civil suit filed by Moore, seeking CAD$68 million in damages and loss of income, was settled on August 19, 2014. The terms of this settlement are confidential.
• 2015 – During the warm up before a qualifier to the SHL, André Deveaux from Rögle BK assaulted Västerås IK's unsuspecting Per Helmersson. Deveaux swung his stick and slashed Helmersson twice. The attack was retaliation for a hit from behind by Helmersson in the game before, which Deveaux claimed caused him a minor concussion. Both players could complete both games, and Deveaux was only disciplined after the game. Deveaux was charged for the attack, but the charges were later dropped.
• 2015 – During an Allsvenskan game on March 5, 2015 Rögle BK forward Jakob Lilja cross-checked Malmö Redhawks defenceman Jens Olsson from behind in the neck area. Lilja received a 10-game suspension, with four of the games converted into a monetary fine as per custom. Over three years later, on July 10, 2018 the Supreme Court of Sweden, after the case had first gone through the lower District Court of Malmö, handed Lilja a one-month probation sentence while removing the earlier imposed monetary fine because Lilja had already been imposed a fine by the ice hockey Disciplinary Committee.

  Longest suspensions