Is the Canadian Medical Association Part of the Anti-Fighting Cabal?

Bruins vs. Devils 2/13/09 Prudential Center, Newark, NJ Zdeno Chára is a Slovakian professional ice hockey defenceman and team captain of the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League (NHL). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While I reading this article, as a matter of fact, I was rolling my eyes. Where do you even begin with this one? You might as well just go ahead and take hitting out of hockey as well. Or better yet, why not just go ahead and just ban hockey?

Andre Picard, Globe and Mail – Canada’s doctors are delivering a body blow to National Hockey League owners, saying they are too accepting of violence in the sport.

Delegates to the Canadian Medical Association annual meeting on Wednesday voted to “condemn the complacency” of NHL owners.

“The owners have a financial interest in tolerating and promoting violence and we need to be a counterweight,” Dr. Pierre Harvey, a physician from Rivière-du-Loup, Que., told the gathering.

He pointed specifically to an infamous incident from March 2011, when Montreal Canadiens player Max Pacioretty suffered a fractured neck and concussion after a violent hit from Boston Bruins player Zdeno Chara.

Dr. Harvey said it is clear that hockey is a rough game but what doctors object to is violence like blows to the head and hits from behind that lead to serious injuries like concussions and spinal cord injuries.

Seriously, where do these people get off? Hockey is an escape from the reality, for many people, including me. Now we have the Canadian Medical Association acting the National Hockey League. Yikes! This isn’t going to play out well in Canada.

Also, MMA is one of the most popular sports in North America; there is no way that it’s going to be banned. I wish some of the pointed headed experts would keep their noses out of our business. We live in a gladiator society and demand our sports; we don’t need the nanny state getting in the way.

Something to think about

This article brings up a good point - how many of us can afford to take a year off from out jobs to prove a point? I don't know anyone that can and if we had to me might not ever recover financially. Most of us would have nothing left and would lose the houses we live in.

The Globe and Mail --- Neither side seems to feel a great imperative to reach a compromise. The league and the union appear to have been emboldened by the response to the last lockout; if fans returned in droves then, they surely would again.

Perhaps that assumption is correct. But the NHL risks eventually exhausting its fans’ seemingly limitless patience. To Canadians and Americans suffering through turbulent economic times, the sight of millionaire players and multimillionaire owners haggling over how to divide the hard-earned dollars of their considerably less affluent supporters is a decidedly unseemly one. And the fact that the league’s employees can afford to miss an entire year of work only serves as a reminder of their comfort. How many other unions, and how many other employers, would have such a luxury?