Fighting wasn’t put into hockey. No, certainly there was no external architect in this case. Hockey provides the necessary atmosphere to create a fight on its own. You can’t separate fighting and hockey because there is no distinct line to form this separation. Fighting is organic to hockey, tangled in so deep that it would be easier to create a brand new sport rather than pull fighting out.
“A fast body-contact game played by men with clubs in their hands and knives laced to their feet”, hockey as described by the late sports writer, Paul Gallico.
He didn’t mention the hard rubber puck they zip around at 150km/h. Much more than any other team sport, the risk of serious injury or death is present each time a player steps onto the playing surface. You can be tripped up at full speed into the end boards, cross-checked from behind head first into the boards, you can get a hockey stick in the face, hit blocking a shot with your ankle, your leg, your face, cut from a skate blade, blindsided by an oversized wall of human at top speed – the list of dangers playing hockey is endless, both accidental and deliberate. Hockey is like a steam boiler. There is so much potential explosive violence it requires a safety pressure relief valve. Fighting is hockey’s pressure relief valve.
Recently, the Boston Bruins bullied the Buffalo Sabres on their way to a 6-2 victory. Trailing 1-0, Boston’s Milan Lucic lost the puck up ice towards Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller. Lucic lumbered after the puck but lost the race and continued to roll through Miller with a body check breaking the hockey code that dictates goaltenders are off limits. A crowd quickly gathered around Lucic but the Sabres themselves have admitted their on ice response was weak and that Miller deserved better. Miller continued to play but was soon sidelined with injured pride and concussion like symptoms.
The Habs have suffered from the same mistake repeatedly over the last decade. They haven’t responded appropriately when they are bullied because they lacked the manpower and willpower to stand up for their teammates. I can refer you to Zednik-McLaren, and more recently Pacioretty-Chara, and maybe not coincidentally both involved their division rivals, the Boston Bruins.
Lucic was assessed a minor penalty for being “gutless” but Shanahan, the NHL’s judge and jury, would not suspend Lucic explaining there was no rule, concerning the hit on Miller, that required supplementary discipline. You can expect the Sabres to deliver the correct and measured response the next time these two teams meet and I can assure you diplomacy will not reign.
If fighting was severely punished, the Buffalo Sabres only recourse will be to react in a manner that is similarly obscure as Lucic’s hit on Miller, but at least as violent. Fighting, however, is not severely punished because it can diffuse the tension in a tidier and less dangerous fashion and because the majority of the fans paying for tickets enjoy the entertainment of this game within a game.
Players will always be looking for an edge on the competition and the physical nature of the game allows room for players who bully and cheap shot and players who defend and protect their teammates. Every team is a mosaic of talents born of grit and skill. Hockey’s popularity is owed to its beautiful ebb and flow of grit versus skill.
Hockey by virtue of its speed and body contact is violent and you can’t control the violence with regulation alone unless you take all body contact out of the game. Body contact provides the potential for unpredictable, explosive violence. Allowing players to fight offers them some measure of control, some measure to make the violence predictable and controlled, some measure to police themselves. Some would counter that fighting is not a tool to control the violence but is a sign that the violence is out of control. But how injured can you really get during a fight. The worst case scenario is a concussion or broken nose, and while not rare, not frequent. Non fighting violence in hockey, however, can be very dangerous and threaten a player’s career. So is the issue really fighting or is it the general nature of hockey itself?
I’m not a fan of an artificially created fight, two goons fighting just to make themselves appear useful. I enjoy the fights born from an escalation of physical play for position or puck. Or fights of retribution for past misdeeds. And you know you have seen an epic hockey game when the opposing goaltenders go to battle, a symbolic fight mostly – all for one, one for all – that occurs during a line brawl. And maybe I shouldn’t mention my favourite, bench clearing brawls. This perfect storm only happens when both teams are playing at the same level of passion and will. Some are legendary and have been given names to secure their legendary status. Remember “The Punch-up In Piestany” during hockey’s “cold war”? The stage was the World Junior Championship where, ironically, fighting was banned. This one brawl launched commentator Don Cherry’s career and took this tournament out of obscurity and made it the sports highlight of a Canadian’s Christmas holiday season. The Russians, out of medal contention, and the Canadians, who had a chance to win gold, were kicked out of the tournament for the disgrace. But Canadians were not ashamed of their team but seemed more proud of their boys and their fight for honour than if they had come home with the gold.
We all have the potential for violence within us. Violence is part of our definition. What sport is more beautiful than that which celebrates the entire human condition? Hockey is a microcosm of a microcosm. Capitalism on top of Darwinism. May the best teams win and let the fans enjoy the strategy, skill and fight they employ to get there.
