Stuck between a Rock and a Hard Fist

Those of you who know me well know that I have a somewhat unhealthy infatuation with sports which, if left unbridled, would probably take over my life. (Little known fact- My two pipe-dream professions while in high school were an airplane pilot and a sports announcer...I even did the on-air tv morning announcements and some local cable shows for my high school). However, Lisa keeps a good watch on me and I'm pretty well motivated to do well in school, so I don't spend nearly as much time on sports as I used to.

My favorite league to watch and follow has always been ice hockey. I know...you're thinking to yourself "I thought they only still played that in Canada and Soviet-bloc countries anymore." Well guess again...it's still around, although the least popular of the big 4 (football, basketball, baseball, hockey), but picking up steam.

So I was checking the game recap recently for when the Philadelphia Flyers played the Washington (DC) Capitols, and this was the picture they had posted on the Flyers homepage: Now what can we gain from this picture? Hmm...maybe that parents and kids alike have bright beaming smiles on their faces like they're watching Copperfield perform magic as they observe Mike Richards (Flyers - orange) make a little school girl out of some Washington player. My favorite is the kid in the upper-right corner who looks barely 10 with the HUGEST open mouth smile. My mom just walked by, saw the picture, and commented something to the effect of how barbaric and horrible it is. Ladies and Gentlemen, consider this your introduction to one of the most interesting and ongoing debates in all of sports...the need (or lack thereof) for fighting in hockey.

What are we, Neanderthals?! It's just a street fight on ice! Somebody think about the children! What kind of role models are these thugs?! How can bare knuckle brawls possibly enhance a skill sport? Well my friends, you may be surprised to know that I am a long-standing and avid supporter of fighting in hockey. I could write for entirely too long all about why hockey fights get a bad wrap from the ignorant, but I'll suffice to list just a few reasons why hockey brawls actually give more to the game than they take away.

First of all, critics claim that if the NHL (National Hockey League) is ever going to become more mainstream, they have to get rid of fighting because it's just not something that people and families want to see. Hmm...again I refer you to the picture at the beginning of the post. Furthermore, I give you one of the greatest overall fights of all time. This was a few years ago between Philadelphia and Ottawa. A (still record) 410 penalty minutes were handed out, and there were barely enough players left on each team to finish the game (you need 5 on each side and I think the Flyers had 7 and Ottawa 8 when all was said and done). Listen to the crowd in the background and you tell me how many people were mortified at the atrocity happening on the ice.



Uh huh. Didn't hear too many people in that sold out arena of about 19,000 complaining about what they were seeing. (FYI, this all took place on consecutive face-offs and took probably no more than 15 seconds off of the game clock. Although over 400 penalty minutes were assessed for the game, no real punishments of any consequence were handed out...everyone was back for the next game)

Ok, now this is an extreme example. Most fights are only a minute long and only between two players. Anyway, my point is that people seem to like it. I mean really like it. I think from a popularity standpoint more hardcore fans would be put off by a loss in fighting than new fans would be attracted. The real problems with popularity, in my opinion, are that the NHL has done a horrible job with marketing and that the game simply doesn't lend itself to TV well (it's just plain hard for someone who doesn't know what's happening to follow along!).

Secondly, it's not the so-called bloodbath that many would have you believe. The players are in a controlled atmosphere with the referees closely watching (yup...they just watch). I'm not going to get into it, but there are plenty of written as well as unwritten rules governing hockey fights. By and large the players walk (skate) away with minor cuts and bumps with most of the damage done to ego.

Finally, I buy into the theory that allowing fights prevents more serious injuries. Look at it this way- hockey is a very fast sport. I trust most of you have gone ice skating before, and realize that you start going pretty fast pretty quickly once you get those legs pumping. Many of you have probably accidentally ran into someone else while skating- yea ouch. Now imagine that you're trained to skate exceptionally fast and someone else as equally trained doesn't like you and decides to "accidentally" clip your knee or your FACE while skating by each other. Or how would you like to have a half-pound brick of solid rubber hit you in the head or back going about 95 mph?

It would be hard to prove that any of these actions were done purposefully, but yet many of them could end your career. Fights allow an effective outlet for aggression before frustration and anger lead to cheap shots. In essence, fights actually protect the players from incidents like this:(FYI- in an odd coincidence, the player you just watched get whacked across the side of the head is the same player that started the whole Philadelphia-Ottawa scrum you watched earlier. His name is Donald Brashear...an "enforcer". Word to the wise...don't mess with a team's enforcer.)

On a relatively side note, if you understand the dynamic of the game, you understand that winning a fight many times shifts momentum and can lead to winning games. Teams put a lot of money into having players who can intimidate and win fights if needed.

Anyway, this is getting absurdly long, so there's the debate - consider yourself informed.