Well, this is interesting!
A hockey pundit, if you will, is now calling for an end to fighting in a league that is, arguably, perhaps best known and defined by it.
This is what Mike Milbury had to say about fighting recently, according to Mike Milbury says it’s time to ‘grow up’ and ban fighting (Video) by Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy, October 8, 2014:
“I think it’s telling me that it’s time to get rid of fighting. It’s telling me that it’s over. As much as I like a good scrap in my day, too many issues here involving concussions. Too many problems. The teams are going away from it. Let’s grow up and get rid of it.”
And as the same article pointed out, he went on to add:
“So many problems with concussions,” he said. “There are too many guys seriously hurt. It’s time.”
And you know what? I think he's right!
Many hockey fans that I know seem to love the fights, and they also seem to feel that this is what separates their sport, and the NHL, from the other sports.
But I think that they're wrong. You want to see fighting, to see grown men grab at each other and throw the hardest punches that they can? Tune into boxing, or MMA.
Not the NHL. I mean, seriously, it's a team sport. There's a reason that the other team sports do not allow it: it cheapens the game. Makes it more trashy, catering to the lowest common denominator.
Also, these men are on ice. I know that they have more or less perfected skating, and that these are not a bunch of Happy Gilmores out on the ice. But when they fight, you begin to see the awkwardness of their movements, because they are on ice skates, and not on solid ground. That plays a part and becomes a factor when you have to plant your feet to throw a punch, as well as when somebody is trying to throw you around. So, it's not even like they are fighting in the best conditions, although perhaps some people like it that way.
Regardless, the point is this: the NHL used to feel like a real sports league. It used to be entertaining, exciting, fun. It used to have great teams, legendary teams, that ranked with some of the finest in team sports. No team was as successful as the Montreal Canadiens, who won an unprecedented 14 Stanley Cup titles in a 24-year span, which is still a record in team sports in North America. In the eighties, you had the New York Islanders and Wayne Gretzsky and the Edmonton Oilers, and some of that hockey was just beautiful to watch. In the early nineties, you had Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins, and again, there were some breathtaking goals and moves.
Beautiful hockey, and great players. But what made them great? Do you remember Gretzsky or Lemieux for getting into silly fights, knocking out other players, or getting knocked out by them? Would that not cheapen their legacy? Can you imagine Michael Jordan or Joe Montana getting involved in fights like this, perhaps even regularly? Do you think that would have added or detracted from their status? How about Derek Jeter, who stayed with one team during his entire baseball career? In an age when enhanced performance drugs, other illegal substance abuse, and the excessive greed of so many of the big name players, Jeter became legendary without apparently giving into all of that. He remained a class act from beginning to end, and deserves a lot of credit for that. But would his legacy have been enhanced if he had gotten into fights with guys from other teams, and punched one of them out? Would we still view him as a class act?
Recently, there have been much publicized problems with conduct from high profile players in sports, particularly the NBA and the NFL. Couple that with the questions of performance enhancing drugs, and the stress that these leagues apparently put on sweeping these ugly chapters under the rug, and you have something that seriously compromises their credibility. The NHL has had some embarrassing incidents of it's own, of course, and perhaps will have another sometime soon. It is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
My point is this: there are enough problems that these leagues are facing without making a mockery of your sport by permitting something as absurd and, frankly, barbaric, as fighting. I was just mentioning the possibility that the NHL might face an embarrassing controversy that compromises the league in the public eye someday, perhaps similar to what the NFL has been facing these last couple of months or so. What if that controversy involves somebody getting seriously hurt, perhaps even fatally injured, during a fight? What questions would be asked if, say, somebody gets hit so hard, that they never wake up? Sound far fetched? Well, consider this: many of these players that actually do get knocked out fall right to the ice, and there certainly is a chance of having their head hit the ice hard. You don't think that could case serious injury?
How would the league explain away such an injury? Could they even try it, if it were to happen? And if they simply reacted by finally banning fighting (which I, for one, believe is inevitable, however remote it might seem in the near future), would it not appear as simply reacting to something, instead of being proactive? Would it not seem to many that they only banned fighting once it hit them where it hurts the most: in their wallets, much like the NFL only got serious about cracking down on domestic violence by their players once it became public and compromised the league?
You know, when I was a kid, I remember generally that NFL football, for example, was considered a "man's game". Oh, there may have been a few female fans, here and there. But they were the exception. By and large, serious fans were almost exclusively male. My mom was the perfect example. She would moan and groan at any and all reminders that the football season was coming around again. And on Sundays, she would protest whenever someone (usually me) would turn on a football game. My girlfriend is like that now, for that matter. I am not trying to stereotype, but generally speaking, that was how it seemed to be, that women really were not fans of these team sports.
That is not the case anymore. I see women going to games with other women, and wearing NFL gear specific to women. And this is not specific to NFL football, either. I see pink hats with team logos all over the place. Hell, my girlfriend even has a shirt for the "Rangers", although whether it is for the NHL's New York Rangers, or MLB's Texas Rangers, I cannot be sure. She has no idea which team it was. in fact, she had no idea that it was supposed to be a sports themed shirt, which might contradict my point here, although I do not think that is the case. The point is, the fact that sports franchises are selling a lot of merchandise to female customers is telling. It's a sign of the times.
But I doubt that too many women would be interested in seeing two guys skating clumsily around on the ice, trying to beat the crap out of one another. Even more importantly, I doubt that they would want their kids to see that. For that matter, I do not know too many good and responsible dads who would feel entirely comfortable with that, either. It promotes the wrong kind of thing in team sports, and again, adds an element of trashiness to the sport.
Add to that the already obvious problems that the NHL has been having these last couple of decades, and they have plenty enough problems on their plate to deal with. This is the same league that isolated much of their fan base by trying to force popularity of the sport onto warm regions that never had any real interest in hockey before, something that I have railed against - repeatedly - in this blog in the past. This, the league did, at the expense of their more traditional, and loyal, fans in northern markets - particularly, but not exclusively, Canada. Quebec and Winnipeg lost their teams in the nineties, as did Hartford and Minnesota. There was talk of other northern cities possibly losing their teams are well, presumably to supposedly greener pastures to the south. At different times, it seemed that Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, new Jersey, and Buffalo were all close to seeing their franchises relocate further south.
Indeed, the league headed south literally as well as figuratively, for sure. Canadian fans, understandably, began to distrust the NHL, and the unthinkable happened: Canadians began to care less and less about the NHL. They still loved hockey, but there was a rise in more local hockey leagues, much like there has been a rise in the farm leagues in baseball in recent years (albeit for other reasons). True, Winnipeg and Minnesota got NHL franchises back. But the level of trust never did return, especially since the NHL had some serious stoppages of play, which even eliminated one season altogether, including the Stanley Cup, playoffs, back in 2005!
So, the NHL has plenty of work to do to restore credibility, I think. But they might want to start by doing something that will at least eliminate some of the trashiness, and restore a bit of integrity and self-respect about the game. And that is, simply put, to do what should have been done a long, long time ago: ban fighting.
Mike Milbury says it’s time to ‘grow up’ and ban fighting (Video) by Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy, October 8, 2014:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/mike-milbury-says-it-s-time-to--grow-up--and-ban-fighting--video-034233669.html
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