ANAHEIM –- Chris Pronger is out and Brian Burke is outraged. Anaheim Ducks defenseman Pronger has been suspended by the NHL for Game 4 of the Western Conference final against the Detroit Red Wings for a forearm shiver to the face of Tomas Holmstrom at 11:40 of the second period of a 5-0 loss to the Wings here Tuesday night. Holmstrom missed the rest of the period taking 13 stitches to two separate cuts.

"I can’t agree. I can’t support the decision and I won’t," said Ducks G.M. Burke. "We disagree completely with Colin Campbell's decision here," added Burke of the man who replaced him as the league’s disciplinarian.

"We respect the process. I think if there's a guy on the planet that understands the difficulty of Colin's job, you're looking at him. These things are not easy. But to me ... Well, we disagree completely completely with the notion that Chris should be suspended."

Pronger left the building after practice here yesterday without comment. "He's sour about it. That's why he's not talking to you guys. He's sour about it. The league doesn't like us swearing. I don't want Chris to talk to anyone today."

Burke chose to be the Ducks spokesman.

"Our view is that the hit shouldn’t be a suspension. The player wasn’t injured. He finished the game. He got a couple stitches which would have been preventable if his helmet had been attached.

"You know, if you watch some of the other views, it looks like a dangerous high hit. If you look at the end-zone view, I think it shows best that Chris Pronger went to hit Tomas Holmstrom at a 45-degree angle from the boards.

"I think at no point is Holmstrom's face facing the boards. At no point is Chris delivering a hit towards the boards, a dangerous hit. He's coming in to finish a check at a 45-degree angle. Rob Niedermayer steps into the player, pins him, you get a high finish. To us, that's what happened. So we disagree completely with the notion that Chris Pronger should be suspended for a game. But we respect Colin Campbell and we respect the process.

"Chris Pronger is an elite player in our league. He's a tough Canadian kid who plays the game as we want it played. We don't approve of guys head hunting. We don't think that's what this was.

"We think Detroit behaved very honorably here by putting the player back out on the ice. The player had two cuts, both of which would have been covered by his helmet had it been properly attached. I think it came off four times last night. The Red Wings did the honorable thing last night. They put him back in the game. Same thing we would have done. There are teams in this league that would have put him in an ambulance and sent him somewhere for the night. Detroit did the right thing and Mike Babcock said the right things. We view this as a poor decision. But, again, we respect the process.

"As I say, I'm going out of may way to say I appreciate the way Detroit handled this. I do. I wish more teams would be that professional, because that's what we would have done, we would have thrown the guy back out there."

Coach Randy Carlyle took the high road. "You live by the league’s decision. Obviously they feel there is discipline above and beyond. Then we live with it. That’s the rules of the game. That’s the league we play in. We support the league’s decision. Sometimes you don’t like it one way or the other but that’s the way it is."

Scott Niedermayer spoke to the subject today while the hearing was being held via telephone. "It’s hard to know what’s really going on. I mean, my brother got the penalty. They’re talking to Chris now. Anybody else they want to bring in? Maybe they should talk to Holmstrom as well.

"You know, I don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure out what they’re looking at. The call last night was five minutes to Rob Niedermayer. Today they’re talking to Chris. Does that make sense to anybody?"

Someone explained to him that his brother had been unfairly charged with a five-minute major and game misconduct for charging and that the officials got the wrong guy. "Oh," he said. He was asked about playing without Pronger. "Is there any other choice?"