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Introducing: Bertuzzdays, a weekly award of shame!

Bertuzzi

Calgary Flames’ Todd Bertuzzi watches the action at the Flames’ optional NHL hockey practice in Calgary on Tuesday, April 21, 2009. The Flames trail the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 in their best-of-seven NHL playoff series. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Larry MacDougal)

AP

In the olden days, Tuesdays were just a beating. Say what you will about Monday, at least you can disgust your co-workers with embellished tales from the past weekend. Tuesdays are basically a bad sequel to or an ugly twin of Mondays. I mean, even Wednesday gets its own name: Hump Day!

Yes sir, Tuesday’s were a big drag ... until now. Every Bertuzzday we’ll agree to loosen our iron fist grip on hockey and let the (sigh) people vote on the previous week’s most shameful hockey human. We couldn’t think of a better player to name such a feature after than the infamous Todd Bertuzzi (besides, it’s a much better pun that Marty McSorturday).

In case you’re new to hockey or were living in a cave back then, the image of Bertuzzi’s attack on Steve Moore became the Zapruder film of hockey. It left Steve Moore with three broken vertebrae in his neck and a concussion and the video became fodder for CNN and other 24-hour news networks. Hopefully we’ll never see anything like that happen again, but in the mean time, let’s do our best to lampoon hockey’s worst ne’er do wells.

Without further adieu, here’s this week’s nominees. Matt Cooke - Look, we don’t want to “lead your votes” here but Cooke is the player responsible for Marc Savard’s concussion problems and has a substantial history of dirty hits. (Video of the hit).

Colin Campbell - We’ve also discussed Campbell quite a bit the last few days. He’s ultimately the man responsible for dolling out suspensions; the lack of consistency in these decisions gave way to “Wheel of Justice” jokes throughout the blogosphere.

Steve Mason - Certainly not anywhere near Cooke’s level of villainy, but Mason was pulled in the first period after allowing 4 goals on 13 shots against the Los Angeles Kings. Again, he’s not guilty of something morally shameful ... but athletically? Maybe.

“Other” - Feel free to bring up a write-in candidate as well. Votes for “James O’Brien for shameful puns” will not be accepted, meanies.