Probably more people saw the now-famous, or perhaps now-infamous, video clip of Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins being hit from behind by Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Randy Jones than have seen Bergeron or Jones play in their entire careers.

Like people driving past a car accident who don't have any desire to see the bloody result of the accident but can't stop themselves from looking, sports fans have seen, over and over, the clip of Bergeron chasing a loose puck against the boards behind the Philadelphia net, only to be hit by Jones, smashing Bergeron's head and face into the dasher which separates the boards from the plexiglass above them.

Hitting is an integral part of the sport of hockey- picture the hard-hitting brutality of football multiplied by the three or fours times the speed the players can generate by flying across frozen water on skates. And one of the first things hockey players are taught when they are learning the game is always to skate with your head up. A player moving up the ice with his head down is a player who is asking to be popped, legally and cleanly and devastatingly.

But a player approaching a puck lodged against the end boards has no choice but to put his head down - he is decelerating to avoid smashing into the boards and he is looking down to see the puck and gain control of it - in short, he is at his most vulnerable.

If you watch the clip of Jones hitting Bergeron - and who hasn't? - you see Bergeron approaching the puck, Jones hot on his trail. Jones appears to slow for just a split-second, then makes either a conscious or unconscious decision to do what he does next - smash Bergeron from behind with both hands and his body. The Bruins player then crumples to the ice and lies motionless on his back.

On Thursday, Bergeron made his first public appearance since the hit in the October 27th game against Philadelphia, and the scene was sobering if not downright scary. The guy who can skate faster than some of are comfortable driving and can make cat-quick moves that the rest of us can only dream about walked slowly and deliberately to the podium.

He spoke softly and haltingly of headaches and blurred vision, and said, "it's hard for me to walk 200 feet without feeling dizzy and lightheaded." He made a strong case for the NHL as a governing body to crack down on the kind of hit from behind that put him in the hospital and could just as easily have put him in a wheelchair or even a coffin.

In 1969, a vicious stick-swinging fight between Ted Green of the Bruins and Wayne Maki of the St. Louis Blues in a preseason game in which Green was nearly killed provided the impetus needed for the league to start pushing players to wear protective headgear. It took a long time, but eventually helmets became just another accepted piece of equipment for a player to wear, like shin guards or elbow pads.

If this career-interrupting injury to Patrice Bergeron, a promising young star who is still only 22 years old, can push the league to start policing itself against this kind of vicious hit from behind, then maybe ten or fifteen years from now Bergeron can look back and see that something good came out of this frightening situation. Assuming he can even remember it.