KDP; it’s time to give up the fight

If anything KPD article gives us reason not to take fighting out of hockey, and yeah Mr. Dupon you’re nuts. All you have to do is witness some of the antics that happen when you take fighting out of hockey, the Stanley Cup playoffs are a perfect example of this, you have players bitting each other and running over the other teams goalies.

Let's break it down further, if you take fighting out of hockey you’ll have buffoons like Alex Burrows, Steve Ott, Dan Carcillo, Raffi Torres, Matt Cooke and Steve Downie (I am sorry if I missed anyone there are many others that I could have included in my post) getting away with all kinds of egregious and questionable acts, the Boston Bruins tough guy Shawn Thornton is right. You’ll have these gutless pukes performing all kinds of random acts of thuggery without ever having to answer the bell; this would actually make the game of hockey more dangerous that it is already.

Kevin Paul Dupont; Boston Globe ---- Too much of today’s game is about hitting to hurt, literally to break the opponent, and that’s not just a danger to players but also to the game’s image, its marketability, and I think its sustainability. To abolish fighting won’t be a cure-all, but I believe it can be key in unraveling a complicated, dangerous, and ultimately losing environment.

So I made that very case the other day to Bruins career tough guy Shawn Thornton, whom I respect as a person, a player, and a fighter (my kind of hat trick). He looked at me in dismay, and then in all sincerity, and with a good amount of animation and invective, told me I was nuts. He made his points in support of the sweet science (all in line with my lifetime position) and really couldn’t be swayed with my “culture change’’ postulate.

“I think if you take fighting out,’’ said Thornton, “you’ll see the game go to places where you’ll want it back just to stop the nonsense — more stick work, more cheap shots, just all the junk. Maybe that’s my old-school thinking, but . ..

I mean seriously, If you took fighting out of the game of hockey, it would be open season on the skilled players in the NHL. This would give players like Kevin Bieksas and Dan Carcillos a green light to perform their bag of tricks. I would not be an understatement to say that players of this ilk would be licking their lips in anticipation because they can skate up and down the ice taking liberties on the skilled players in the NHL without ever having to answer the bell. In the past, there has been little if any consequences for their questionable actions, why would they now all of a sudden behave, you can’t count on the NHL front office to discipline them.

I can see players like Sidney Crosby becoming victims of more random acts of violence. Let's not be confused, just because Colin Campbell has stepped down as the head disciplinarian in the NHL don’t expect the newly anointed Brendan Shanahan to change the culture in the NHL. This is a bad idea and its’ ill conceived… I suggest taking the instigator rule out of NHL Hockey and it would clean the game up tomorrow.

If you think that I am over exaggerating this point just watch a game in the WCHA of the NCAA, there is no fighting in college hockey, the players wear full cages and almost weekly there are all kinds of random acts of violence, these egregious hits by the players are rarely punished and the players never have to worry because they know they won’t have to answer for their acts of thuggery. As we have seen in the past that players can take out a team’s skilled player and know that there will be no repercussion and they will only probably get suspended for one game anyways. What do you think? Lets start the debate.