Five for Fighting

Me work hard five days a week
Sweeping garbage from the street
Come home not want book to read
Not 'nuf pictures for me see!
Sit right down in favourite chair
Wearing only underwear
Favourite night is Saturday night
'Cause me can watch hockey fights!
Me Like Hockey! Me Like Hockey!
--"Me Like Hockey", the Arrogant Worms


Fighting in hockey: should it stay or should it go?
This is one of those issues that can consume a group of Canadian hockey fans, almost driving them to blows themselves. Supporters of fighting are called Neanderthals and worse; detractors are called nancy-boys and told to go watch figure-skating, or "AIDS on blades", as one friend of mine dubs it. (And before you get all PC and tell me that's homophobic, that friend is gay.)
I guess what really bothers me about this whole debate is that both sides drag out arguments that have nothing to do with their positions.
Those who support fighting in the game will tell you hockey is the fastest team game on earth, that the rivalries in it are intense, and that players need some sort of relief valve. They have no real answer for why, then, when rivalries are at their most heated (playoff time), you so rarely see fights; nor why, even in days of yore, the number of players who actually dropped their gloves and started chonging away on each other were reasonably few.
Fighting fans will also tell you that the prospect of a fight will deter opponents from dirty play. That can't be right. While there have been some nasty incidents way back in NHL history (such was when Eddie Shore nearly killed Ace Bailey on the ice in 1933), such disgusting acts are much more commonplace in later years, despite the fights that result from them. The biggest reason, I think, is that players now wear helmets and thick padding. They (and their opponents) think they are invulnerable.
People who are against fighting in hockey, meanwhile, will tell you the perception of brutality is what's holding the sport back in the United States, where television ratings are practically nonexistent. But nobody leaves the room during a brawl, and people in attendance are invariably standing, stomping and screaming.
Fighting's foes will also say that it cheapens hockey--which is a perfectly valid opinion. Those who play the game largely with their fists, however, will tell you theirs is an honourable profession, and by and large those who fight consent to it beforehand: indeed, you often see combatants smiling at each other after they've fought. What really cheapens the game, they'd tell you, are the cross-checks from behind, the two-handed slashes, the slew-foots, the knee-on-knee collisions. These acts draw suspensions; fighting means a five minute penalty and nothing more.

Some of the most respected players in the history of the game have been fighters. I'm not talking about goons like Dave "Tiger" Williams or Tie "Pugface" Domi; nor even those with some talent, such as Bob Probert or Wendel Clark. No, I mean some of the all-time greats. To this day, a "Gordie Howe hat-trick" means a goal, an assist, and a fight. And while Bobby Orr didn't fight often (you had to catch him before you could hit him, let alone punch him), he more than held his own against league heavyweights when he had to. In one of his Art Ross years he had eight fighting majors. That's the same total Toronto's designated enforcer, Wade Belak, has to this point this year.

Some of the best games I have ever seen were full of fights. Other great games had nary a whiff of one. These days, it's rare to "go to a fight and a hockey game breaks out", as the old joke goes. There are still certain unwritten rules the breaking of which invites a dropping of the gloves: running the goalie, firing the puck into the net after play has stopped, a late hit, or--sad to say it--a perfectly legal hit on your star player. But fighting is on its way down. I'm not sure that's a good thing.