The NHL seems to have turned a page in its never-ending quest to control violence in the sport.

First it was Scott Nichol, now it's Colton Orr. Who would have thought that a brawl in a different league would have so much of an effect on the NHL?

Orr, the New York Rangers forward is the latest NHL player to feel the commissioner's wrath -- he's been suspended five games for an ugly cross-check to the head of Alexander Ovechkin.

There was no injury, but there could have been. Still, traditionally, the NHL has dealt with these sort of infractions with kid gloves -- a game, maybe two. But in this case Orr got five.

Now look back to a few days before Christmas when Scott Nicol of the Nashville Predators got nine games for sucker-punching Jaroslav Spacek. It was ugly, but not of the Tie Domi-Ulf Samuelsson variety.

In this case, Spacek had just taken Nichol's legs out and thrown him through the net and into the end boards. Was Nichol stupid for attacking an opponent who turned his back? Yes, but was Spacek being dumb by turning his back on a guy he had all but slew-footed? Definitely. He was hoping to avoid the consequences of his actions..

Regardless of what Spacek did moments before, the suspension was warranted. However, look back about a decade or so, and you will see that Domi got just eight games for arguably the defining sucker punch of the last 20 years.

So, what's changed? Well, a lot (think Todd Bertuzzi). But, most recently, the ugly scene in an NBA game on December 16th between the New York Knicks and the Denver Nuggets. After that altercation, NBA Commissioner David Stern came down hard on his players, with star Carmelo Anthony earning a 15 game suspension, one of the longest suspensions in NBA history.

Just two days after that was handed down, Nichol punches Spacek and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was faced with a choice, or perhaps an opportunity.

Bettman decided to take a firm stance and gave Nichol a much longer suspension than such an incident has garnered in the past. (If you doubt this, go to YouTube, watch video of the Domi shot, and than the Nichol one and tell me they aren't night and day).

You know what, I'm happy he did. For a long while the NHL has tried to legislate the worst of hockey's violence out of the game. However, Bettman and crew have been hampered by the old-guard mentality that says hockey is a violent game, and that such actions will "just happen," and by a series of precedents that saw awful stick fouls receive two- or three-games suspensions at most.

Now in light of the infamous "Malice of the Palace," in which the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons brawled in the stands two years ago, the NBA has gone down a zero-tolerance road. With that as a quiet rationale, so, seemingly, has the NHL.

Some may not see the link, but Bettman was hired because of his NBA experience, and because the NHL wanted to do the same thing to their league that the NBA pulled off in the 1980s. Take a fringe league, with regional appeal, market the heck out of its stars and go mainstream.

The NHL has mimicked the NBA's structure in several ways (some of them ill-advised, such as removing the character of division names and replacing them with "less confusing" geographic identifiers), so this aping of the NBA is completely in character.

In this case, Bettman is getting it right. While I see what had Nichol so angry, the message such an attack won't be tolerated has to be sent. If Nichol had even turned Spacek around forcing the Sabre defenseman to decide to fight or turtle that would have probably ended the situation. But, Nichol didn't, and so he has to pay for his actions. Perhaps this means when we next see a truly ugly incident (I don't see the Nichol case as one), a 15- or 20-game suspension will be handed out, and maybe that will get players thinking.

The other test now is this: will Bettman have the guts to do what Stern has done -- suspend one of his biggest stars? Bettman's discipline of Bertuzzi was a no-brainer, and I'd even argue, Bettman didn't punish the than Vancouver Canuck forward enough for arguably one of the worst attacks in sports history.

However, if tomorrow, Sidney Crosby or Jaromir Jagr chops some fourth-liner and breaks his arm, will Bettman react as if the name on the jersey said Nichol?

One hopes so, because this opportunity to install a new standard of discipline won't come around again soon. This is a great chance for the NHL to show sports fans that while fighting has its place, these sort of incidents don't. That there's a huge gap between the two, that the NHL recognizes it and won't allow dirty play to receive a de facto sanction through soft punishments, is a big step for the League.

Now, if the NHL can just start working on bringing back the Norris division…