So I was watching a fight last night, and right in the middle, a hockey game broke out.
Some people around the NHL want to erase this admittedly bad joke forever, as there has been a lot of talk lately about banning fighting in hockey. Now, I feel bad for Todd Fedoruk, whose clocking and subsequent concussion will likely cause him to miss the rest of the season (and which brought up the issue), but banning fighting from hockey is a bad idea in so many ways.
First off, most of the injuries like Fedoruk's come from cheap shots; only rarely does a fight result in a serious injury. Chris Drury, Tomas Kaberle—the list of bad injuries caused by cheap checks—not fights—goes on and on. Should the NHL ban checking because of a couple extreme examples? That's basically what league disciplinarian Colin Campbell is arguing with fighting instead of checking. The NHL's policy of taking things on a case-by-case basis is working perfectly fine right now.
As clichAc as it may seem, fighting is a part of hockey. You need only look at the outpour of opposition towards the banning of fighting by the players in the NHL. Not one player came out in support of Campbell's comment that fighting needs to be examined. Hockey is such a fiery, physical sport, and it's hard to control emotions out on the ice.
Also, sometimes guys just want to fight, like when Georges Laraque challenged Raitis Ivanans (one of the leaders in penalty minutes) to a cordial battle earlier this season with ""You want to square off? OK, good luck man."" As one of the announcers said right after this fight, fighters are still a respected position by the players in the NHL.
In fact, the issue came up near the 10-year anniversary of one of the fightingest (and best) games in NHL history between the Red Wings and the Avalanche. For the majority of the '90s, no teams hated each other more than Detroit and Colorado. Every matchup inevitably involved bad blood and a general chippiness. That bad blood boiled over, however, on March 26, 1997.
Colorado won the Cup the year before and had knocked Detroit out of the Western Conference Finals. In addition, Avalanche forward Claude Lemieux had seriously injured Wings center Kris Draper in Game 6 with a check from behind. It was only a matter of time before the two teams dropped the gloves. And drop the gloves they did.
The game involved 11 goals, 144 penalty minutes and one of the best fights of all time, a goalie fight between Mike Vernon and Patrick Roy. Detroit forward Darren McCarty also got some vengeance for Draper with a few punches to Lemieux (who subsequently tried to hide, despite the fact that he is perhaps the peskiest and most hated player in NHL history).
Despite all the fighting that took place in this game, no serious injuries occurred and it merely made future games between the Avs and Wings even better. That's one of the problems with the NHL, currently there are no really good rivalries. I have hope for Buffalo and Ottawa, who have had a couple classic battles this season, including a 6-5 shootout win for Buffalo that included more than 90 penalty minutes, a goalie fight and a fight between Ottawa goalie Ray Emery and Buffalo bruiser Andrew Peters. These two teams could meet in the Eastern Conference Finals in a battle that hockey fans would be drooling over.
So, a word to the wise Colin Campbell: ban fighting and you will not only lose fans, but much of the passion and rivalry that makes hockey great. Slowly but surely the NHL is getting back to its pre-lockout greatness, just leave the product alone.
If you'd like to challenge Zach to a fight, e-mail him at zlkukkonen@dailycardinal.com.
