Fighting in Hockey

The country is abuzz right now with the never-ending debate about fighting in hockey now that this fellow in Ontario, Don Sanderson, is in a coma after getting into a scrap and hitting his head on the ice. It's got me to thinking, and now it's gotten me out of bed.

I've always been a big fan of hockey fights. I'd guess the majority of people who enjoy watching the game also enjoy watching the brawls when they break out. The evidence is pretty clear: fans at the rink get out of their seats and get louder -- teammates cheer their combatant regardless of the outcome -- fights always make the highlight shows -- American TV shows the "tale of the tape" and even adds sound effects to slow-mo replays of decisive punches. It's an aspect that makes the sport almost unique in the world in that it allows you to keep playing after serving your time.

I tried and failed to make a case in support of hockey fights to a couple of Irish guys in a Dublin pub this summer. We'd just come from watching an afternoon of hurling, a huge sport in that country which enjoys the same kind of intense coverage and fan support as any big pro league over here. Hurley is a fast, rough, stick-wielding game of strength and skill that looks pretty vicious on the surface, but fights are rare. These fellows just couldn't fathom why fistfights are an accepted and even valued part of ice hockey. It's become the automatic Canadian response to just shrug and say, "That's just the way it is."

For entertainment and marketing power, no question fighting is valuable -- but that's only really a factor at the elite levels. Certainly fighting serves a purpose on the ice to keep people accountable for their actions. On paper, I suppose it should be up to officials and organizers to do the policing, but that's never the way it goes in reality. Tempers boil over, you let it get the best of you and it just happens. Then there are the calculated, arranged bouts you sometimes see in elite hockey -- helmets removed, skate to center, the refs don't even try to stop it. Quite a spectacle, very exciting, especially for the young kids who take in the reaction of all those crazed fans around them. The adults who set the example, both the ones who take them to the games and the ones on the ice playing the games, are setting those kids up to carry on the tradition. I got swept up in it all myself, and now I'm a fan of hockey fights.

A serious injury is rare in a one-on-one scrap. The players are covered in pads, usually have their lids on too, and unless it's a big mismatch, things will come out pretty square. But is it worth one person's life to keep things the way they are? No way. We may finally be at the crossroads where that decision has to be made.

So how's it to be done then? Fighting gets you ejected in the youth hockey system. At some point along the way, that practice stops. Why should it stop? Given that the kids are always trying to emulate their heroes, I think the change (if there is to be one) should happen from the top down. A move by professional hockey to eject fighters would be progressive, it would go a long way to making goonery obsolete, it would catch our game up with the rest of the sporting world. And it would prevent a few more freak injuries like Don Sanderson's.

I would miss those great fights, but it's a void I could probably live with.