Posted on 03/25/2008 6:27:58 PM PDT by canuck_conservative
Whenever the subject of hockey comes up, I'm the pansy who prattles on about how much he likes the European game — the big rinks, the passing, the fast players, and — most importantly, a lack of fighting. The fighting in North American hockey is one of the main reasons I stopped paying any attention to the sport a decade ago. What kind of legitimate sport has "enforcers" — whose mission is to engage other "enforcers" in the sort of activity that would get regular people arrested if they did it outside of a bar? I guess the closest analogy is rollerball — which is more or less the way many Americans view hockey.
Of course, every once in a while, someone "crosses the line" and does something particularly sociopathic — as goalie Jonathan Roy did by beating up his opposite number in a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League hockey playoff game Saturday night. And for a few days, we all pontificate over the incident, and tut-tut about how the player in question did not respect the "unwritten rules" governing ritualized combat on the ice.
But the real problem isn't idiots like Roy. It is that the hockey world has created a bizarre culture in which the idea of taking off your gauntlets and getting into fistfights with your opponent is considered a "normal" part of the game. So long as this convention persists, there will be fights, and some people will get carried away and do especially stupid things. Is it too much to ask that — in a society where violence is seen as a pathology in virtually every other context — maybe we should reexamine the century-old boys-will-be-boys idea that hockey games should be periodically stopped so that certain designated players can engage in medieval combat for the benefit of drunken fans?
jkay@nationalpost.com
Derick Sanderson and Bobby Orr ... unstoppable dynamic duo.
Hockey is just like basketball, except that men play hockey.
The end zones on N.A. rinks are deeper than European rinks and thus negate the width difference.
While on-ice fighting has been severely curtailed with appropriate penalties handed out, it is still a necessary part of the game.
Anyone who cringes at the thought of the dropping of the gloves should switch their attention to figure skating.........
The sport has already been ruined by the ridiculous interference rules. There is no real defense played anymore. It’s like watching an NBA game. And don’t get me started on shootouts...
“Hockey is just like basketball, except that men play hockey.”
bravo bravo
I just luv Center Ice in HD on DTV; money well spent. I also have a brother-in-law who has never been to a game, yet hates hockey over something he doesn’t even get or understand.
I'd prefer to watch an Olympic gold medal round game than a Stanley Cup finals any day.
Ok, you write that you are a pansy (I was thinking of another word beginning with P).
Note that I have just dropped my gloves and given you the look. You are undoubtly turtling as I write.
;-)
For me it was closer to three decades ago. I used to attend about 35 games a year living a 100 or more miles from NYC. Now I normally wouldn't walk across the street to see a game for free. The fighting was one thing. But I also realized that I cared more about the games than the players did, which is just stupid. (Watching Brad Park trip over the red line, or Vic Hadfield grinning in the penalty box as the Rangers were losing the Stanley Cup final game was a sort of message to me. There's no one grinning as they're getting booted out of the NCAA tourney.)
ML/NJ
The international ice is 200 feet long and 98 feet wide. Goal lines are 13 feet from the end boards.
On an NHL rink, the blue line is 64 feet from the goal line and the two blue lines are 50 feet apart. In international hockey, the blue line is 58 feet from the goal line and the two blue lines are 58 feet apart. The Olympic game is much more wide-open -- not just because of the wider rink but because of the larger neutral zone.
It's great that our boys will associate masculinity with cheating. They'll learn that if someone else is better than them at something then violence is perfectly acceptable.
Really?
I don't watch anymore, except maybe when they get to the Stanley Cup semis. But I do see highlights at my gym in the morning and it seems they're always showing fights. Some guys in the locker room were talking about a Devils game they went to last week where the fights broke out during the warmups. I don't watch the NBA, but I probably see 50 NCAA BB games a year and I cannot recall ever seeing a fight.
ML/NJ
Please define "cheating."
In your country, the fans simply try to kill each other. Whether it’s setting the stands on fire, or pressing against fences, it’s always entertaining to watch soccer hooligans.
“It’s great that our boys will associate masculinity with cheating.”
Fighting in hockey isn’t cheating.
“They’ll learn that if someone else is better than them at something then violence is perfectly acceptable.”
Perhaps they’ll learn that they need to work hard for what they want. It has nothing to do with who is better it has to do with intimidation and its part of the game.
Do you think there isn’t intimidation in the NBA, NFL or MLB?
“But I do see highlights at my gym in the morning and it seems they’re always showing fights. Some guys in the locker room were talking about a Devils game they went to last week where the fights broke out during the warmups.”
Networks like ESPN ignore hockey, but show clips of the fights because that’s what they think people want to see. I saw a poll last year that asked two groups of people (regular hockey viewers and those who rarely see a game) how often fighting occurs. The group that rarely saw games believed that fighting happened four times as often as it actually did! Their perception was skewed by highlights and hearsay.
Yes, but the other great tradition of professional hockey--throwing yourself to the ice and flopping around like a fish in an attempt to draw a penalty--is.
This was written by a guy with the honest to God first name of Jonathan. Enough said.
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