There aren't many places in America where it's perfectly all right – and even encouraged – to assault someone physically with the intention to injure. But unfortunately, still, one of those places is a National Hockey League game.
I had been kicking around the idea of diarying this for a few days, but I now have an actual news story as cover, so forgive me for this foray into the non-overtly political. Not overtly, I say, because it does have ramifications for what kind of society we want to be.
Let me preface this by saying I've been an NHL fan since I was four years old. One of the first things I remember as a kid growing up in the Pittsburgh area was making my "Pen folder", where I'd collect articles, cards, and pictures of all the Penguins players. I still remember the names: "Battleship" Bob Kelly, Pierre Larouche, Jean Pronovost, Ron Stackhouse, Dave Burrows, Rick Kehoe. And to this day, I think there's no greater moment in sports than the skate of the Stanley Cup after the championship is won. It's a ritual absolutely without parallel.
But it pains me to see fighting as an accepted part of the game. Aside from boxing, no other legitimate sport is so cavalier about this. If the NHL wonders why it's having a hard time attracting new fans, it can start here. League disciplinarian Colin Campbell, though, has broached the issue:
I'm not afraid now to talk about the fact that we should look at fighting in hockey," said Campbell. "I think if you discussed this even three or four years ago you would have got pooh-poohed out of the game.
"But now I think because of the size of our players, where we're at in sports and in life, I think we have to look at it."
The best arguments people can come up with for keeping fighting in the game is that "Well, it's a part of the game," or "You'll lose fans." To wit:
"I think you're going to lose fans," veteran Coyotes centre Jeremy Roenick said. "As much as I hate to say it - because you'd like to think everybody comes to see the exciting players do their thing - but there's a large amount of people who love the physical, tough aspect of our sport. And fighting is a favourite of a lot of people.
"Would it kill me (to have fighting banned)? No. ... I wouldn't mind not seeing it, I don't like to see anybody get hurt. But as far as selling tickets, there's a large group of people who enjoy the fights."
There's a big problem with this, though. You don't need a guy who makes $5 million a year to go out and provide buffoonery. You could find some drunk guys on the street who would put on team jerseys and fight each other for a six-pack. It's a serious dilution of what an NHL player is. There are not many people on earth who can skate around three guys and fire a laser shot with pinpoint accuracy into a little opening. Or who can sprawl out in a superhuman way to stop a puck zooming at over 100 mph through five players standing in front of him. That's what makes an NHL player special. Not the willingness to be a clown so people can hoot and guffaw.
This was the problem I had with Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl a couple of years ago. It wasn't that she flipped the nip, but it was that she'd willingly reduce her art to that. We don't need $20 million, 40-year-old Janet Jackson to do that. We could find lots of talentless 21-year-old empties to take that on for a lot less. And it surprised me that Jackson didn't see that.
But how NHL players choose to showcase themselves is their business. There's another issue at play, and that's what we deem acceptable as a society, and what we feel it's OK for our kids to be taught. Like it or not, TV and entertainment are a de facto public school system of sorts. Everybody wants to stamp and holler about kids being taught in public schools that gay people aren't evil, but they don't bat an eye when people kids see as role models use violence as an accepted means to solving problems. Especially when the players are bigger, stronger, and better conditioned than ever before. They can really hurt each other out there.
I've also watched college hockey for a long time, and there is no fighting in that game. If you get into a fight, you leave the game. Period. It's the same way even in the tough-as-nails NFL. Throw a punch, and you get the thumb. And your team gets a 15-yard penalty on top of that. Hence, you almost never see any fighting in these sports. And yet, college hockey and NFL football have loyal fan bases who don't clamor for fighting. They let the players do their talking by making big plays.
And that's what I want kids to learn. If you've got a problem, you can't just lash out at people. You have to learn how to turn it into productive energy. Being a neanderthal won't get you anywhere.