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The long arm of the law rose up in a Vancouver courtroom Friday and smote its wrath down upon hockey's symbolic sinner.
Well, Donald Brashear hit the deck a lot harder in late February than Marty McSorley did Friday. Judge William Kitchen's aim seems to be as bad as McSorley claims his was when he deliberately skated up the ice, looking for trouble, missed the shoulder and bonked Brashear on the right side of the head with his lumber.
No jail time. No fine. No criminal record. No terse rebuff at the Canada-United States border.
And, let's get this right, McSorley's guilty?
Uh, back up and explain this again for the terminally slow, please?
"He will bear the stigma of this for the rest of his life," explained Judge Kitchen in rendering his verdict. "The finding of guilt is the real consequence here."
That could be argued in some quarters.
In 1988, Dino Ciccarelli received a day in jail and $1,000 in court for a stick-related offense on Toronto defenseman Luke Richardson.
McSorley was handed an 18-month conditional discharge yesterday, with the proviso he have absolutely no participation in any sporting activity of any kind with Brashear during that span. Geez, not even racquetball or the occasional crack at synchronized diving? Don't we want these guys to make peace and do a little bonding?
Talk about hard time!
A lot of people can think of things they'd rather do than go into a hockey game against the intimidating Mr. Brashear, even when he's has no particular axe to grind. Now, no one seriously expected any sort of jail time for McSorley. And, ignorant ranters to the contrary, the incident isn't indicative of the way hockey in the NHL is played on a regular basis -- the fact it received such widespread attention only drives the point home.
So the decision we heard yesterday is a neat, tidy compromise on a number of fronts.
Outside the courtroom following the announcement, one of McSorley's Boston-based attorneys, Paul Kelly, said, with a forced somberness, that his client was "extremely disappointed" by the decision of guilt, adding McSorley was "seriously considering" an appeal.
McSorley is one the most colorful, approachable, articulate players in the NHL. Maybe in all of sports. A genuinely nice guy. But even nice guys do dumb things, and what McSorley did to Brashear went beyond dumb to indefensible. It's unfortunate the entire game has been stained by one brain-dead act.
"A child swinging at a tee-ball wouldn't miss," Kitchen said of McSorley's claim that he meant to thwack Brashear on the shoulder. "A housekeeper swinging a carpet-beater wouldn't miss. An NHL hockey player would never, ever miss."
He also disregarded the McSorley camp's contention of unwritten "consent" by NHL players to physical danger.
So on the big JumboTron out-of-town scoreboard, here are the winners in this entire distasteful process:
For starters, McSorley. It's possible after a sit-down, heart-to-heart with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, he could be re-instated and resume his NHL career at 37. There are always teams in this league that have room for a guy with a little bit of an 'edge' to him. McSorley may argue the "guilty" charge stains his reputation, but unless he goes whacko again in the next 18 months -- an unlikely occurrence -- he gets off with absolutely no repercussions.
The league. Because the trial -- during which some of the lawyers actually sought out Wayne Gretzky's autograph when the Great One appeared to lend support to the man who rode shotgun for him all those years -- was hockey friendly from the outset.
The suits in New York must have sat up nights trembling in fear that the culture of inherent violence within the game would be dragged up during proceedings, opening a potential Pandora's Box of unpleasantness.
It never cropped up. Judge Kitchen ruled this was strictly an individual in an assault case -- McSorley was on trial here, Kitchen emphasized, not hockey.
"If this is the trial of Canadian hockey," Kitchen maintained, "then judge and jury is the Canadian public."
Now the league may argue the guilty finding opens up potential problems with what qualifies as excessive violence. But, really, Ciccarelli was convicted, too, and it's taken 12 years for something similar to occur again. Yesterday's decision doesn't mean lineups at courtrooms are going to be longer than at penalty boxes tomorrow.
The Crown. By rendering a guilty verdict, it has ostensibly shown the NHL that the league is not a courtroom onto itself.
So, to the great relief of everyone concerned, the trial of Marty McSorley is over. Doubtless the debate about the verdict will occupy our attention for a few days, then it'll all blow over, as these things are apt to. McSorley is free, the Crown did its duty and the NHL will be back at business on the ice.
Hard to say, though, what it all accomplished.
A man was on trial. Some say an entire sport was, too. There were dangerous ramifications for all concerned. Which leads to the inevitable question:
How come no one really lost?
George Johnson covers the NHL for the Calgary Herald. His Western Conference column appears every week during the season on ESPN.com.
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AUDIO VIDEO
 Marty McSorley attacks an unsuspecting Donald Brashear.
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Marty McSorley press conference.
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Marty McSorley's attoney Paul Kelly comments on filing an appeal.
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ESPN's Al Morganti talks with Vancouver defense attorney Colleen Smith.
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Gary Bettman talks on SportsCenter.
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 Donald Brashear will be happy to put everything behind him.
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NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky went to see McSorley on the day Marty took the stand as a show of support for a friend.
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NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky talks about the how Marty McSorley verdict will affect the game of hockey.
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