The fighting debate in hockey.

Yawn! Here we go again. The NHL GM's are down at their annual meeting in Florida talking about various issues and one of them is the subject of staged fights in hockey and hits to the head. Personally, I can't ever see the NHL without fighting, and it probably will never happen, not any time soon anyways. Also, I wonder why people can't leave well enough alone as well.

Of course there are always going to be a few people that are going to be appalled at fighting in the National Hockey League but for the most part a lot of those those people don't understand fighting role in hockey. Fighting is a method of policing the game and keeping people honest. Here is what a few people had to say about fighting in the NHL.

NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly, who addressed the GMs for an hour Monday morning, said the players support fighting in the game. The skilled players like it because they believe having someone in their lineup capable of handling himself in a fight provides a measure of security for them. Enforcers like it, naturally, because it provides them with a job.

"The players' view is fighting actually does play an important role in the sport," Kelly said. "Players believe that fighting, to a large degree, does cut down on some of the violence in the sport, it does cut down on the stick work and other play. It protects the star players, the smaller players."

Here is what Brian Burke GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs had to say about "staged fights" in professional hockey. You have got to love Brian Burke he says it like he sees it.

"Staged fighting. I see that phrase a lot," Burke said. "You'll see two guys line up off the face off and they're yapping, and then they fight and everyone says, 'Oh, it's a staged fight.' When I was playing in the American League, I went up to a guy in a game who speared me two years before that when I was playing university hockey.

"So, anyone else upstairs would say it's a staged fight. Well, it wasn't a staged fight. I was going to get this guy, and I was going to get him the first time I was on the ice with him. And after the incident, he yelled at me, 'What was that all about?' And I told him, I said, 'You got me two years ago, and I didn't get a chance to get you for two years.' It's not always a staged fight."

Did he win the fight?

"Yeah, I did win the fight," Burke said. "Dave Lumley. Go ask him. He speared me in the back of the leg."

Here is what Jarome Iginla has to say about the subject of fighting in Hockey. I agree is Iggy without fighting in the NHL there would be a lot more stick work and liberties taken on games star players.

Without fighting, there would definitely be more stick work, some more cheap shots and cheap hits. Fighting keeps people accountable—they know there is the threat of a fight if things get too carried away.”

—Calgary Flames forward Jarome Iginla

Will the NHL ban staged fights?

The subject of banning staged fights is coming up again at the GM's annual meetings in Naples Florida. I am not so sure the league wants to go there. Fighting is a big part of professional hockey and I would be willing to bet there are a good number of Wild fans that go to the games to watch Derek Boogaard take on one of the leagues tough guys, it’s an interesting side show and it’s fun to watch. Also, these so called goons or tough guys make room for the skilled players and keep the opposition players honest. If a player cheap shots a skilled player like Marian Gaborik they know the Boogey man is going to take a piece of him eventually.

What I love about the "anti-Boogaard" brigade that has surfaced as of late, is I bet you its all the people that were extremely pissed and calling for Brad May to face Derek Boogaard in the playoff series with the Ducks, when May-Day punched out Kim Johnsson. Same with when we seen Mattias Ohlund break Koivu's leg. I bet they called for Ohlund's suspension to be reduced, just so he got to face Boogaard in the matchup a few games later. Its old, really. Onto Boogaard, he is one of the few reasons to actually see a game. Do you really think people went to a Kings/Wild game a couple weeks ago, looking to see Anze Kopitar? I HIGHLY doubt it. Again, I'll bet you, a lot of the people that went (myself included), went to the game hoping to see the heavy weight fight between Derek Boogaard and Raitis Ivanans. Same thing a few weeks before that when the Preds came to town. Yay, lets all go out and see Radek Bonk! Please. A lot of people would be kidding to say they didn't want to see Boogaard/Belak IV. Its a dirty secret to hockey, but, when the team has played as up and down, and very boring as the Wild have this year, there isn't much else of a reason to see some games. (comments section of article)

They just can’t leave well enough alone, can they? Hockey is a niche sport and I could care less if we are scaring some social high brow elite from the north east away because they are offended by fighting in the NHL.

Also, I don’t know if the NHL wants to go there you could end up going down a very slippery slope here. Fighting is a deterrent to further violence. I know this sounds silly to some but have you watched a division one college hockey game lately? The DQ for fighting and the face mask have actually raised the level of violence, stick work and checking from behind penalties. A lot of the stuff goes on because the players in the NCAA division one hockey know they don’t have to fight if they cheap shot someone.

Lastly, if the National Hockey League really decided that they wanted to ban staged fights, how do you decide when a fight is staged or not staged? This would be almost as ridiculous as it sounds. Who’s is going to decide? Two refs aren’t going to be the same. Are the on ice officials going to call Toronto for a ruling?

Based on interviews with several GMs, there is at least one form of fighting most of them would like to see disappear, but no one knows how to do it without an outright ban on fights. And no general manager could be found who supports the complete elimination of fighting.

What most of them would like to see is an end to the staged fight, where two players whose only role on the team is to fight, drop their gloves and go at it.

"The sense I get is there will be a lot of discussion on staged fights," said Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli. "I'm against that. But no, I don't see an outright ban on fighting." (Read the whole story here)

NHLPA head wants to kill staged fights in the NHL.

Thanks to Mike a reader of this blog who sent me this article from ESPN. The other night I was watching a NHL hockey game with my wife when two random goons/tough guys dropped the gloves and broke into a boxing routine. Why wife told me, “This is stupid because these two guys don't even look mad at each other, how can they just fight each other”. I tried to explain the code and the role that fighting has in professional hockey, but I am not sure the random staged fights fall under the code. My also said she likes the fights that happen as a result of a heated emotional play and not some staged bought.

I have to admit that I love watching Derek Boogaard who has played in 187 games scored 2 goals 10 assists and has an eye popping 423 penalty minutes pummel some random thug from the Ducks or the Av’s but I can see Kelly’s point. I also believe it is a slippery slope that the NHL doesn’t want to go down. If you take fighting out of hockey they you run the risk of increasing stick fouls and no way to police the agitators that skate around taking liberties with the games elite players.

TORONTO -- The head of the NHL Players' Association believes it is time to consider a rule mandating helmet use during fights and to examine the role of one-dimensional enforcers in the game.

While a "clear majority" of players want fighting to remain a part of hockey, Paul Kelly feels his constituency is open to restrictions on the process.

"A couple that we've talked about that ought to be looked at anyway is, do you consider a rule whereby players need to keep a helmet on during the course of a fight, and perhaps require officials to step in if a helmet comes off during a fight," Kelly said Wednesday before the Conn Smythe Celebrities Dinner and Auction.

"If it's true that when guys get hurled to the ice or tripped to the ice and bang their skull on the ice is where the real danger comes from, then maybe we can protect against that. It's certainly something worth looking at," the union chief added.

Kelly acknowledged the role fighting has in policing the tenor of play but added that so-called "staged fights" between two players with skill sets limited to throwing punches may no longer have a place in the game. The potential damage that strong men who stand well over 6 feet on skates and weigh more than 250 pounds can inflict might now make such bouts too dangerous.

"If it's a staged fight between two superheavyweights that perhaps arranged it a day before the game, I'm not so sure those are the fights that we need to continue to have in the sport," Kelly said. "And if they're the most dangerous fights, we ought to take a good, hard look at those.
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Instead, Kelly argued that fights arising "out of the spontaneity of the game, the adrenaline of the game, the emotion and the need to protect a teammate or yourself from an unclean hit" were a natural part of hockey and were a required element of the sport.

He went on to say that Wayne Gretzky would have played "several hundred" fewer games in his career if he didn't have Dave Semenko and Marty McSorley as teammates

Don't look for the NHL to ban fighting anytime soon even the commissioner of the NHL isn't for it.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman likened the fighting study to how the league approached the successful revamping of officiating standards coming out of the lockout in terms of its scope.

He warned, however, that banning fighting from the game altogether is a non-starter.
"I don't think there's any appetite to abolish fighting from the game," Bettman said.

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