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
I’d say the real problem with North American hockey is all the slots reserved for slow, unathletic Canadians who “earned” it by coming up through the Jr Hockey ranks.
Open the game up, speed the game up, and get rid of the no talent hacks...
Two of the most physically demanding sports out there, too.
What a nancy-boy!
What do you do when somebody cross-checks your frilly ass?
Hit them with your purse?
(Comment directed at author, not poster)
LMAO @ the guy typing that from his keyboard.
Tell that to Kurtis Foster.
And in his heyday, Peter Forsberg was one of the dirtiest players I ever saw.
“LMAO @ the guy typing that from his keyboard.”
LMAO @ the guy who is behind a keyboard inferring the guy commenting on hockey from behind a keyboard is somehow not manly because of that said keyboard.
You raise an interesting point. I'd say at the current size of the NHL, it's inevitable that you're going to have Jr. Hockey as the biggest source of your 'talent' (or non-talent, as the case may be). Get rid of a third of the league's teams, shorten the season to about 60 games (which increases the value of each game), and expand the playing surface (to put a premium on skating). Those would be my presciptions. But none of it will happen, since it would cost revenue initially.
Aside from the fact that that has to be the longest run on sentence on the books, do you have a point to make?
The "removing an opponents spleen with their hockey sticks" comment has a ring of truth to it. Take out the fighting altogether, and I think you will see more stick work as players use whatever is at their disposal to try to gain an advantage. It's an aggressive game, and if guys feel the need to drop the gloves and get it out of their systems, so be it.
If I want to watch a bunch of players pussy-footing around a large playing surface, I'll find a soccer game.
Yeah, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
I;m one up I hate all hockey.
Seriously? That’s your response? Thanks for the discourse, Aesop.
Maybe not first but basketball is great for that. There is a hell of a lot of finesse in drawing a foul.
I think Jordan Tootoo and Dion Phaneuf could both vie for that distinction today.
roll = role (duh)
Cheating??? Have you ever even SEEN a hockey game??? Since it seems you know nothing of the game....please keep your asinine comments to yourself!
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