Todd Bertuzzi has accepted a deal from the Crown, pleading guilty in exchange for a "conditional discharge" (read: community service) and a clean record. It's my understanding that sentencing is being done right now, as the judge denied Steve Moore's lawyer's request to have Moore read his victim-impact statement in the court, which would've caused a delay of the trial.

Remember Bertuzzi, who savagely epitomized the dark, soft, cruel underbelly of hockey? It still astounds me the extent and attachment people have to their team, and especially their utter insistence at the sainthood and moral invulnerability of their players. These "protestors" took Bertuzzi's "cause" seriously, and placated themselves with gratuitous signs that said, "FREE 44", like 44 was a jailed, political anarchist denied his freedom of speech, not a rage-filled hockey player who hit someone in the back of the head. More puzzlingly is that 44 was and is free; I imagine he was sitting in his home in Kitchener, with his family, busying himself with simple domestic duties and thinking about Steve Moore. There were no handcuffs to his hands, no shackles binding him … and I can only hope there was and is a lingering, perpetual remorse.

While Bertuzzi himself may not be a political prisoner, "his" cause, represents the other side of hockey's continual civil war over the question of violence and fighting. It has been eclipsed by bigger, more pressing issues but soon, media attention, desperate for stories, may return to it. The clips will be played again; older ghosts and skeletons in the closet will be exhumed – Kharlamov's knee, 1972, Jeff Beukeboom, the Broad Street Bullies ... like a national attempt at an exorcism, the lingering guilt and moral issues will be paraded and broadcast.

And over and over again, the question of why the Crown did what they did will be asked, furiously dissected on talk-shows and late night vampires. What kind of idiots do we have working in the courts? Are they hockey fans or prosecutors? And perhaps even a cynical, Where's my O.J. trial? The intentions and shortcomings of the Crown will be examined thoroughly, with the absence of any other stories.

Someone, a lone rebel, will attempt to justify the plea bargain: Since he was practically guaranteed no jail-time anyway, what would be the point? Even if he did have a criminal record, he would eventually have it cleaned up so he could continue his NHL career. What would be the point of wasting the Crown's time? Surely there are more urgent cases that have been overlooked.

But even more overwhelming will be the number of people who are just simply puzzled by why the Crown bothered to go through with convicting Bertuzzi if the consequences would be negligible. They'd patiently taken three months to examine the loads of photographic and medical evidence, but then suddenly seemed to give up. Had their photographs, videos, testimonies picked up something the 18 000 live witnesses and millions more who watched it on TV, had not?

Most pressingly, is how Steve Moore's circumstances will play out. Unlike the other hockey player victim of this past season, Dan Snyder, he is not dead -- there is no media circus at his funeral and no memorial funds it was spectral opportunities he had and they are gone; impossible to catch once more, impossible to re-enter the system. He will think about this later, perhaps, not now; doctors have said though the rest of his physical body is healing miraculously, he has severe post-concussion syndrome; pounding headaches, mood swings, flashing lights.

Are those symptoms money can fix, through a civil lawsuit? Would jail-time for Bertuzzi avenge Moore's lost fringe spot on the Colorado Avalanche? Would Bertuzzi's volunteer service at a children's hospital in Vancouver even come close to repaying what he owes Steve Moore?