Retired Canadian professional ice hockey player Todd Bertuzzi is sorry for the way he treated media members during his NHL career. Mostly sorry at least.
“I was too hard, I told you guys, ‘Sorry if I was a douche, man,'” Bertuzzi said during a spot on Sportsnet 650’s Starting Lineup in Vancouver. “It’s true, I wasn’t very co-operative at times because I wasn’t ready for that stuff. I didn’t want to speak every day. I was paid to go play hockey and entertain fans not to have stuff written in the paper. I could care less what was written in the paper, the stories that you guys needed. I just wanted to go play hockey and entertain fans, that’s all I wanted to do.”
But Bertuzzi pulled back a bit on the seemingly genuine apology. He said, “sorry if I was a douche,” but Bertuzzi made sure to call out two writers that he still considers ‘donkeys’ and ‘cowards.’
“Cox and Simmons are two donkeys that don’t know anything,” Bertuzzi said. “I don’t consider them sportswriters. They’re complete cowards. They just write opinions without ever confronting me or looking me in the eye when I showed up.”
Making that comment while apologizing for his past treatment of the media seems like odd timing. And being that he was a self-admitted “douche” to the media, it’s fair to question if Bertuzzi’s comments on Cox and Simmons are justified.
The 45-year old Bertuzzi was a bruising winger in the NHL from 1995-2015. Despite compiling a near hall-of-fame career, Bertuzzi might be most-remembered for the sucker punch he threw at Steve Moore in 2004, breaking his neck. He likely doesn’t appreciate the way Cox and Simmons have portrayed him following the incident.
Damien Cox is a columnist for The Toronto Star and previously co-hosted Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown on The Fan 590. Steve Simmons is a longtime sports journalist who currently writes for The Toronto Sun.
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
