We may be invested in the games emotionally, but in most cases, we don’t know NHL players on a personal level. We forget that they have lives away from the rink. We forget that they have families and friends. We might even forget that they are people, not just No. 21, that winger from Alberta.

When we forget those things, nothing bad really happens. But when Todd Bertuzzi forgets those things, he can end someone’s career—maybe their life.

Luckily, Steve Moore is not dead. It also appears that he is not paralyzed. These are small bits of good news, but they don’t make us feel any better about the situation itself.

It doesn’t change the fact that Moore is sitting in the spinal unit of a hospital right now, with a brace around his neck and an uncertain future in front of him.

Some may say Bertuzzi deserves sympathy. They may say Bertuzzi didn’t mean to injure Moore. They may say that he is a decent man who made a mistake. And that may be true.

But there are plenty of decent men who make mistakes that hurt others. Some of them are in jail. Maybe that’s where Bertuzzi should be, too.

After all, if I threatened someone through the press, then ran up behind him in Harvard Square three weeks later, punched him in the face and broke his neck—all on national television—I’d probably be in jail. Why should Bertuzzi be different?

Bertuzzi is, in fact, facing his own sort of retaliation. But he’s not being threatened with sticks and fists. Instead, he’s got men wearing suits and uniforms looking at what he did. Men from the NHL offices. Men from the Vancouver Police Department.

At the very least, they should end Bertuzzi’s season. We’ll learn today if that’s the case.

But no matter what is ultimately decided, we know Bertuzzi has been given due process. He has received a fair hearing by the NHL and the police. He has been treated with basic human dignity.

It’s a crying shame he didn’t show that same respect on Monday.

—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.