NHL to look at Fighting.

According to hockey guru Puck Daddy the NHL is going to look at fighting.

Colin Campbell, the NHL's director of hockey operations, plans to ask the league's 30 general managers if they want to ban fighting.

The question will come at the general managers' annual meeting in Naples, Fla., in early March. It will be part of a long look at fighting by the league and its GMs, although a vote to ban fisticuffs from the NHL version of the game is unlikely.

"I think that will be a very short discussion," Toronto Maple Leafs president and general manager Brian Burke said yesterday. "I am not in favour of it."

Burke said he will keep an open mind on the topic of fighting, at least until he hears what the discussion is in Naples. But he does not think many of his peers want to remove fighting from hockey.

"I vigorously oppose [a ban], so I think it will be a short discussion," he said.

Leafs GM Brian Burke brings up some good points on the role Fighting plays in the National Hockey League. I also believe there isn’t going to be a ground swell of people in the NHL wanting to change the status quo; I believe fighting is here to stay in some facet. If Fighting is taken out of the NHL you will have these gutless punks known as agitators skating around the ice taking liberties with teams skilled players with no way to exact justice. The code will be thrown out.

I do think Brian Burke is wrong though, fighting in hockey sells tickets. Some people go to NHL hockey games with the sole purpose of seeing a fight. While I think Fighting plays a role and polices the game, it isn't the sole reason I watch the game (apparently there is something wrong in some eyes of enjoying a good fight).

While Campbell believes questions about fighting need to be asked, Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke has his answers ready.

"I think it's a very important historical and present part of our game," said Burke. "If it comes to a vote, Toronto is certainly not going to vote to eliminate fighting. That's certainly not going to happen while I'm here.

If you take fighting out of the game, you eliminate the players' ability to regulate the violence in the game. That's what fighting does. It's not gratuitous. It's not to sell tickets