The NHL / Julie Cart : New Jersey Doesn’t Suit Nystrom

Bobby Nystrom’s love affair with the state of New Jersey, if ever he really had one, is definitely on the skids now.

The New York Islanders’ assistant coach was doused with beer, which ruined a perfectly good suit, then charged with criminal assault by the disgruntled fan who had poured the beer on him after a game last week.

Nystrom’s team had just beaten the devil out of New Jersey, 8-4, and the Devils were returning the favor with a bench-clearing brawl on the ice. Nystrom was behind the Islander bench, watching the melee, when a New Jersey fan, James G. Smith of Palisades Park, came to the glass behind the bench and dumped the beer on Nystrom.

“I wiped my eyes and looked up and saw this guy running up the stands,” Nystrom said. “I didn’t even think, I just took off after him.”

Nystrom said he grabbed the fleeing Smith some 18 rows later, and the two men scuffled momentarily before security guards intervened.

Nystrom laughed off the incident until he learned that Smith had filed the assault complaint. Nystrom promptly filed a counter-charge.

“As a player, you turn the other cheek against abusive fans so many times,” Nystrom said. “But as a coach now, I felt this kind of spectator involvement was totally out of line.”

Nystrom, 34, was an Islander player until Jan. 5 of this year. He was inadvertently hit in the left eye with a teammate’s stick during a practice, significantly reducing the vision in the eye.

Nystrom has been told by several specialists that there is a 99% chance that he will one day suffer a cataract and lose total sight of the injured eye.

Because he played last season under a termination contract, Nystrom is ineligible to file a disability claim. Under the terms of the NHL Players’ Assn. collective bargaining agreement, players under a termination contract became ineligible to collect disability for career-ending injuries suffered after Sept. 15, 1985.

Nystrom said he planned to take legal action against the NHLPA.

Now that the fighting problem is under control in the NHL, it’s on to bigger things, like negotiating a television contract, right?

Forget it. As usual, fighting is never far from the forefront in hockey. Politicians are never far from controversy, either, whether creating it or reacting to it via press releases.

Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn jumped into the middle of it recently. Flynn sent letters to all local professional sports teams, warning that he would use police to stop fighting, if necessary.

“The type of conduct that we have witnessed at various Boston-area sporting events must be considered unacceptable,” Flynn said in the letter. “All too regrettably, many have come to view violent incidents of this sort as a part of the game, when they are nothing more than senseless violence, which we cannot and should not tolerate in Boston.”

Flynn’s letter was prompted by a bench-clearing brawl in the Boston Garden during a game between the Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens. The bloody incident resulted in $14,000 in fines and 114 penalty minutes.

Flynn told a group that if he had been at the Bruin-Canadien game, he would have “instructed my police commissioner to go onto the ice with the police department and have the Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens taken off the ice and handcuffed and arrested.”

Bruin Coach Terry O’Reilly, a former brawler who holds Boston’s team records both for penalty minutes in a career and in a season, called for hockey officials to put a stop to fighting.

“You can get into two fights before getting thrown out,” O’Reilly said. “Some people might look at that as condoning (violence). Maybe the league should just clamp down and make fighting illegal.”

A spokesman for the Bruin owners said, in response to a question about Flynn’s threat: “I won’t dignify that question with an answer. If there is any affirmative action, it would have to be NHL-wide.”

NHL Notes The worst-kept secret in the NHL is finally out. The St. Louis Blues have been sold by Harry Ornest of Los Angeles to a group of St. Louis investors. The NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved the transfer of ownership last week. Ornest had to sell the St. Louis Arena, which he did, for $15 million, to complete the sale.