New Comm Ave

Matt Lechner is a freshman at Boston College, originally from the suburbs of Washington D.C. His hobbies include mountain biking, Jared Allen, and playing the air drums to Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight". In today's job market, Matt plans on remaining a golf caddie for the next several years, and has no objection with the lifestyle. Matt is looking forward to summer shenanigans, country concerts, and attending his first ever Nascar race.

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With the piercing sound of the school bell, my fellow students began filtering into the classroom and taking their seats. It was a crisp winter morning in Washington D.C., our first day back in school from winter break. Students were sporting new North Face jackets, collared shirts, pullover hoodies, and stylish new shoes. Jay Carmony glided into the room sporting something unique: a black eye and a missing tooth.

“Dude, what happened?” one of my friends inquired.

“We had a tournament up in Albany,” he explained, “I fought this guy in the final game. Didn’t go so well…”

Jay played for a junior hockey team based out of D.C., the Washington Junior Nationals. Why did he walk into class looking like he had gotten in a street fight? Interestingly enough, fighting is sanctioned in junior hockey leagues in North America. Jay, a 17 year old at the time, had fought a 19 year old and come out on the wrong end.

Junior hockey is one of three general subdivisions of the sport of hockey. College and professional, namely the NHL, are the other two. Together, they comprise nearly all North American hockey players playing at a higher level, that is, above high school. Fighting is allowed in junior hockey, banned in college play, and allowed in professional leagues including the NHL. The prevalence of fighting in hockey is hotly debated and there are valid arguments to its eradication and to its necessity in the sport. Fighting undoubtedly plays a role in hockey, but with the high risk of serious injury or even death involved, does it still belong in the sport?

Fighting in the NHL dates back to 1922, when the league first introduced fighting regulations under Rule 56 (Bernstein). The rule implemented a five-minute major penalty for players involved in altercations. Collegiate rules were, and still are, stricter on fighting. Any player involved in an altercation is ejected from the game and given a suspension, usually of one game. Thus, fighting is generally uncommon at the NCAA level.

Fighting, nonetheless, serves a purpose in all levels of hockey. With the allowance of fighting, cheap shots and dirty play are less common, which translates to less serious injuries (Bernstein). Basically, if you hit someone from behind or spear someone (hockey term for using the butt-end of the stick to jab someone—a very painful and highly illegal maneuver), you can expect the opposing team’s fighter to come after you. In the NHL today, pretty much every team has a designated tough-guy—sometimes called “enforcers” or “goons”. Their purpose is to essentially serve as on-ice policemen, and their intimidation factor is what often deters opposing players from dirty play. These designated tough-guys also protect the skill players on their team. If an opponent goes after the star player of a team, the opposing team’s enforcer will undoubtedly be taking to the ice for some retribution. Therefore, the existence of the fighting, and the existence of “enforcers”, actually keeps the peace in many situations.

Upon first establishment of Rule 56, fighting was still somewhat barbaric in the NHL. Over the years, however, additional regulations have been levied to “clean up” fighting. In 1977, the “third man in” rule was established, in which a game misconduct penalty would now be given to “any player or goalkeeper who is the first to intervene in an altercation already in progress” (NHL Rulebook). This widely eliminated the bench-clearing brawls that had become common in the early 1970s, when the “Broad Street Bullies” of the Philadelphia Flyers set the norm with their brutal, aggressive, and unforgiving style of play (NHL Digest). In 2006, the NHL established the “instigator” rule, which gave a minor penalty and a ten-minute misconduct to the fight instigator, in addition to the five-minute major penalty for fighting. Essentially, when an individual now instigates a fight, he is putting himself and his team at a disadvantage. His team will play a man down for two minutes, and he will sit in the penalty box for 15 minutes. These two regulations established by the league have contributed to a considerable decrease in both total fights and fights per game. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, fights per game in the NHL were around 1.0. As of the 2006-07 NHL season, the average is just over .61 (Morrison). All of the changes in NHL fight policy were also observed by junior leagues in North America, and fighting as a whole is now much more controlled and humane than in past years.

Despite fighting becoming more benign in recent years, the simple fact that it still exists in the sport infuriates both knowledgeable experts and ardent fans. Hockey is often said to be a family sport. Fathers often have their kids on skates by the age of 3, and it is not uncommon to see brothers playing together at higher levels. But what do aspiring hockey players think when they see their favorite player pummeling an opposing player into the ground, or leaving the ice with a bloody face after losing a fight. Regardless of legality, are these the morals we want to be instilling in our children? When CNN runs its daily sports segment, and all they show of the New York Rangers’ game is Donald Brashear’s fight, what kind of image of the sport is that portraying? To non-hockey fans, they see only the brutality of a fight rather than the beauty of the game.

Hockey is the only sport of the five major North American sports (baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer) to sanction fighting. As John Buccigross, ESPN analyst and hockey expert explains: “If anything, fighting keeps hockey as an extreme sport. Extreme sports, while entertaining, do not garner mass appeal.” Those who support fighting in the NHL often argue that TV ratings and game attendance would suffer if the enterprise were to be banned from the league, but Buccigross tackles this issue as well, proving that fans are primarily interested in watching hockey, not fights. “More people watch the Olympics and the Stanley Cup Playoffs than the [NHL] regular season” he explains. “The Olympics have no fighting and the Stanley Cup Playoffs have virtually none” (Buccigross).

The fiery debate over the place of fighting in hockey often gets rekindled every couple years with the occurrence of some frightening on-ice incident. In 2000, Marty McSorley of the Boston Bruins swung his stick at Donald Brashear, a Vancouver Canuck at the time, causing him to lose consciousness and giving him a grade three concussion. In 2004, Todd Bertuzzi’ s cheap shot on Steve Moore left Moore with three fractured vertebrae and a grade three concussion. Moore has not played in the NHL since, and likely will never again. More recently in 2008, Jonathon Roy, goaltender for the Quebec Ramparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and son of former NHL all star goaltender Patrick Roy, lit up popular video site YouTube with his appalling attack on an opposing team’s unwilling and defenseless goaltender, for which he ultimately was charged with assault.

These attacks, however, do not constitute what the NHL or any junior league describe as “fisticuffs”—the official term for a sanctioned fight—and are in no way condoned. These are barbaric displays of criminal violence, for which the assailants ultimately answered for when they were charged with crimes and put through the judicial process of the United States. The National Hockey League and the enterprise of fighting cannot be judged by the actions of these few. These few took their emotions too far—violating what hockey players refer to as “the code.” As Ross Bernstein, noted expert on the subject of fighting in hockey, describes it: “’the code’ is actually a living, breathing entity amongst players and governs how, when, why, where, and with whom fights can take place out on the ice.” It is not chaotic, and it is not random in the least. In fact, he says, “the code” is all about “respect, accountability, honor and courage” (Bernstein). Still, many argue that fighting at the junior level is inherently wrong, despite any role it might play in the sport. Most players are between the ages of 16 and 20 when they play junior hockey, yet are allowed to beat the pulp out of each other with little repercussion.

The world of junior hockey was dealt a devastating blow in January 2009 when a fight tragically ended with the death of one of the players involved. 21-year-old Don Sanderson was in the midst of an ordinary scuffle when he fell and smashed his head on the ice. His helmet had fallen off of his head (Thomas). This is, in fact, the main danger of fights both in junior hockey and the NHL. Serious injury usually only occurs when one or both of the helmets of the fighters come off. Sanderson was a fine young man and his death truly struck a nerve in the hockey community throughout the world. Sanderson’s death marked the first death and most serious fighting-related-injury to date in hockey, and truly has caused league commissioners to question the point at which fighting is no longer reasonable.

In response to Sanderson’s death, Ontario Hockey League commissioner David Branch instituted a new rule into the league—effectively seen as “the first tangible step toward the elimination of fighting in hockey” (Toronto Sun). As of January 15, 2009, Ontario Hockey League rules state that any player who takes off his helmet before or during a fight is to receive a one-game suspension. If you take off your opponent’s helmet, the rules state, you will get a one-game suspension plus an additional two-minute minor penalty. “What does this mean?” Steve Simmons asks. “More safety for players in major junior hockey. Less reason for gratuitous fighting” (Toronto Sun).

The rule also brings another aspect into play, and leaves one wondering if it might be worth it for the NHL to adopt a similar rule. In an interview with Tie Domi, legendary NHL fighter and “tough guy”, the possibility of a helmet rule was brought up. Domi responded saying that pro players “tend to take off their helmets during fights because it saves their hands.” Fighters, he said, “would be less willing to participate if it meant having their hands mangled day to day from punching helmets” (Toronto Sun). So essentially, if the helmets stay on, the gloves do as well. The rule seems like an easy way to accomplish two things—player safety and fight limitation—and perhaps prevent a Don Sanderson-like event from occurring at the NHL level.

Fighting does, in fact, play a role in hockey, but when the safety of players is in jeopardy, steps must be taken to limit the chance of injury. In junior hockey, fighting must be more strictly regulated, if not banned. What can we say when teenage hockey players begin exhibiting violence off the ice when the same actions are condoned on the ice? Just as children ought not to play violent video games, so teenagers should not be able to legally mar another’s face during a regulated hockey game. Many of the players are still teenagers with a life ahead of them, and the game will survive without the prevalence of fighting. In the NHL, the players are grown men. They’re professionals. They know what they’re doing. Fighting is a part of the NHL. It always will be. Should it be regulated? Maybe. But in the end, it must come back to the players. If the players want regulations, then give them regulations. If they want to keep the game the way it’s always been—like old-time hockey—then let them do so. Just as the NHL Players Association (NHLPA) negotiated their way through the Lockout of the 2004-2005 NHL season, so they will do what they deem in their best interest as a labor union in representation of the players of the National Hockey League.

• 2010 Spring
• Research