Josh Lindsey
Vesna Tanaskoski
English 112, Section 75A
15 April 2012
The
Controversy behind Fighting in Ice Hockey
Dating
back to the early nineteenth century, ice hockey is one of the oldest sports
that is still popular in current times. Although the main goal of the game of
getting the puck to go into the opponents net is fairly simple; there are a lot
of complex rules, regulations, and traditions that are followed by players at
all levels. The most unique aspect of the game that is highly frowned upon in
every other sport is fighting. If things are not going a team’s way, or an
opponent commits a dirty play that is overlooked by the officiating referees,
players will often drop their gloves and issue a challenge to fist fight an
opposing player. Along with fighting in the sport of hockey comes quite a lot
of contention on the subject. In recent years there has been quite a lot of
talk surrounding the question, should fighting be removed as an aspect of the
sport?
Like
most things, there are both positive and negative aspects to this integral part
of the sport. There seems to be almost an equal amount of critics, analysts,
and experts that both support the fighting ban and oppose it. Some of the major
reasons fighting is subjected to being eliminated from the sport include a
noticeable increase in head injuries and concussions among players, the
barbaric aura fighting gives off, and also the implied uselessness of the action.
People
in all different positions and fields of work are jumping in on the debate
about banning fighting from hockey. From politicians, to journalists, to sports
analysts, everyone seems to have their own opinion on the matter. Former presidential
candidate Ralph Nader even went to lengths as far as writing an open letter to
the NHL Commissioner Gary Batman. Nader’s letter cites that the main reason
fighting, and ALL blows to the head should be outlawed is due to player safety
and concussion awareness. Close to the
beginning of Nader’s letter he states:
“Fighting
in hockey can no longer be a long-debated issue pitting those who find it
barbaric and unsportsmanlike and those who argue that it’s an integral part of
the fabric of the game. The growing mound of research on sports
concussions and brain injuries has taken the fighting issue to an entirely
different level. We’re talking about short-and-long-term damage to the brain, the very foundation
of who we are as people (Nader).”
He has a
point as far as player safety goes. Players should not be exposing themselves
to life threatening injuries. However, there is currently no proof that these
severe brain injuries are directly linked to fighting. In fact, later in
Nader’s letter he goes on to say: “Science has yet to provide us with all the
answers when it comes to head trauma and concussions (Nader).” This could
easily be viewed as the letter dis-crediting itself. The approach he is taking
by stating that even though there isn’t a direct link between head injuries and
fighting, why not take safe pre-cautions and eliminate fighting pre-maturely is
understandable, but unnecessary. There
is no point to eliminate something so tradition orientated and commonly
associated with something without any solid proof.
Usually
every hockey team has only one or two players that fill the role of the player
who often gets into fights. These players are commonly known as Enforcers. The
reason this information is crucial is to show that even if there is a direct
link between injuries involving the head and fighting, only a small percentage
of players are actually in jeopardy.
One of
the said called enforcers is Georges Laraque. Laraque is a former NHL player
who recently retired from the league to end his fourteen season long career.
Although he was known more for his fighting rather than his goal scoring
abilities; he was highly respected and regarded as one of the classiest players
in the league. This goes to show that players who fight are not barbaric
animals.
In an article by Dan
Steinberg found in the Washington Post’s online counterpart, there are segments
of an interview conducted with Laraque where he claims that every frequent
fighter in the league respects one another. This respect goes as far as the
players never fighting one another without the opponents consent as well as the
players wishing each other good luck before, and congratulating the victor
after the fight. Towards the end of the article Laraque states that if the
league banned fighting he would no longer have a job, showing that players who
fight are needed on teams and hired for a reason.
Back to the subject of a link between
head injuries and fighting; an article entitled Blood on the Ice by Sean Gregory suggests that fighting in the
sport of hockey can actually lead to death. He cites that since three NHL
enforcers, Rick Rypien, Derek Boogaard, and Wade Belak all seemed to die consecutively;
there must be a link to fighting. If one looks past the odd coincidence that
all three players that died were all enforcers, it would be plain to see that
since Boogaard’s death was due to an accidental overdose, and the other two
were ruled suicides, fighting is obviously not the cause nor a factor in any of
these unfortunate passings.
In
response to Ralph Nader’s letter to Gary Bettman; Mike Chambers a hockey player
and journalist for the Denver Post wrote the article “Ralph Nader has it Wrong,
Fighting Must Remain in Hockey.” Chamber’s seems to take a more logical
approach to this debate regarding fighting. He States:
“I’ll
be quick, because this issue doesn’t deserve much space. Ralph Nader has
obviously never played hockey, nor studied the game. He’s comparing all the
recent head injuries to fighting. Listen, if fighting was banned there would be
MORE HEAD INJURIES! More players would take liberties — cheap shots,
cross-checks and glove-punches to the head — because they’ll know nobody will
beat them up for it, make them accountable. (Chambers).”
What
chambers covers in this article makes perfect sense. One of the two major
reasons players fight is to protect their star players from getting injured. If
a player decides to throw a body check or a hit to the head on the opposing
player; the opposing player’s team’s enforcer will likely hunt down the player
that committed the violation and issue a fighting challenge. Therefore just
like Chambers stated, if fighting is outlawed, players will more likely take an
illegal run at an opponent’s head if they know that all they will receive is
two minutes in the penalty box as opposed to having to deal with the other team’s
enforcer on top of it.
According to research done by Sean Gregory in
the previous article Blood on the Ice,
a mere eight percent of head injuries are considered to be possibly linked to
fighting; where most of the other head injuries that occur are from what the
NHL describes as a legal body check. It’s plain to see that the main source of
these devastating head injuries is not from the old tradition of fighting, but
an even more integral part of the game, the body checks. Now a whole new
argument has surfaced, if the league really wanted to limit these injuries they
would not worry about taking fighting out of the sport, but the checks. This is
highly unlikely because aside from shooting and skating, this is the third
major component of what hockey is. It would be like taking tackling out of
football, or sliding challenges out of soccer, it’s just not going to happen.
Hockey players are well
aware of the risk when they begin playing. They get paid to take these big hits
knowing that they might, and probably will get injured at some point in their
career. Players and fans are also well aware of the tradition that comes with
the sport and believe that it should not be subjected to being changed and
eliminated.
Another
issue that has to do with the elimination of this tradition from the sport is
that while the fights may look vicious and highly dangerous when viewed in
person or on television; they are in fact not as bad as they look. For example,
in the article “Fighting in Hockey: Should it be Banned?” by Jason Clary, he
explains how when there are fights in a game, they are highly regulated and
there are strict rules pertaining to the act of fighting. These include five
minute major penalties applied to both participants in the fight, game
ejections and possible suspensions for players that fight more than two times
in a game, and harsh punishment for players who decide to use a weapon such as
their stick or skate (Clary).
To be
realistic, fighting is such a strong tradition in the sport of hockey that it
probably isn’t going anywhere. Eliminating it would deter a small amount of
player injuries, but not enough to remove an integral part of the game. There
are both unspoken and clearly stated rules pertaining to fighting in games.
Likely, that will be enough to refrain NHL commissioner Gary Bettman from
making the motion of removing this aspect of the game. Hockey is a very old and
traditional sport, and should not be stripped of the roots that allowed it to
become what it is today.
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