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 used to play the beer leagues when I was younger, but nowadays, I play once per annum in my high school's alumni game. I absolutely love it; as a fellow goalie, I'm sure you'll agree that there is nothing like it.
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I played in Peabody MA after taking about 20 years off. I moved to NC to a town with a rink and I still play about 3-4 days a week. I have given up on the leagues for the most part. I am sick of kids (20-25 year olds) chopping at my hands after I catch a puck or snowing me.
I like the beer drinking afterwards, however!
Hockey is all about ‘puttin on the foil’
Hockey's reputation as a tough, aggressive sport can be traced back to the 1920s when the substitution rules were changed. Before that time, the whole athletic culture revolved around the idea that an athlete should have the endurance to play a game in its entirety. This is why a older sports like soccer and baseball have very strict limits on substitution (one-time substitution only), and why hockey's original rules only permitted substitutions in cases of injuries to the starting players.
As a result, hockey was played at a pace that was probably very similar to soccer today -- in which most players stand still or walk/jog around slowly while 2-4 players engage in short bursts of activity in the vicinity of the ball in play. In other words, it was a very dull game to watch.
When the rules were changed to allow free substitution, the game of hockey changed dramatically in two ways -- one of which was expected, while the other was a secondary impact that was not anticipated.
1. The game got much faster, and much more intense. Hockey became a very anaerobic sport, in which players would engage in fast, intense activity for short periods of time before coming off the ice for 2-3 shifts.
2. The culture of the game got much "tougher." This was partially the result of the increased speed and intensity associated with Point #1, but it primarily grew out of the very nature of a game involving free substitution and rotating groups of players on the ice. While hockey teams will have some players who get more ice time than others, they will always use every player (with the exception of a backup goaltender) who dresses for a game at some point during the game. This means that a team is forced to play somewhat short-handed whenever a player is lost to an injury. As a result, a culture developed in hockey in which injured players would insist on playing unless their injuries rendered them physically incapable of performing. This is why -- even to this day -- you see hockey players play with injuries that would sideline any other athletes for weeks at a time.*
* One of the best examples of this was an incident involving a player named Jocelyn Lemieux (brother of famed NHL pest Claude Lemieux) about 15-20 years ago. He was involved in a frightening collision in which another player's skate cut a vertical gash on his face. He was helped off the ice to the locker room, took 120 stitches to close the gash, and came back at the start of the next period to finish the game!
OUTstanding. Great post.
That's one of the reasons I love hockey so much; nothing short of death keeps a true player off the ice.
Yeah, but wouldn’t it be cool if the NHL & other ‘Premier’ hockey leagues could have an international schedule as kind of a “World Cup of Hockey”. With a more compact NHL & a shorter NHL Season it would be possible to have a Tournament.
Of course back in the day enforcers didn’t fight enforcers, enforcers fought cheap shot artists. That’s why they got the name “enforce” they enforced the rules when the refs missed a call, you cheap shot our star on one shift you can pretty much guarantee that some time soon our enforcer would be on the ice with you and the gloves would come off. Then came the instigator rule, which basically outlawed fighting an unwilling opponent, making it so that in order to avoid major suspensions both fighters pretty much have to drop the gloves at the same time. Of course cheap shot guys never drop the gloves, so enforcers have to fight enforcers, and cheap shotters have nothing to fear. Thus the level of cheap shots climbs and the number of fights drop.
Best sports movie ever.
...my initial reaction is that can't be right. But upon further review, I'm not coming up with anything better. Best I could do is "Brian's Song," and ya know, good as it is I just hate having to be teary eyed and explaining to my woman that she "just doesn't understand" by the end. So you might be right. I did read somewhere that Paul Newman says it was hands-down the movie he enjoyed making the most.
League average right now is down to just a little under two fighting majors per game, since it takes two to tango two fighting majors in a game means there was one fight. And the reality probably a third of games have no fights at all, that slack gets taken up by what we call the “chippy” games the ones with three or four fights. So will there be a fight in the highlight reals tomorrow, probably, does that mean there’s a lot of fighting in the game, no.
Why is fighting a "necessary" part of the game? I attended eight NCAA Division I hockey games this season, and I did not see a single fight, and yet the game was fast, brutal, and entertaining. The NFL and NCAA Division I football are violent and brutal and yet, they have somehow survived even though fighting is rare and dealt with swiftly by the officiating crew, and they enjoy a fan base that the NHL can only dream about. I played rugby for 8 years, and I can't recall a single fight in the dozens of matches that I played in. And while fights break out in Major League baseball, they are relatively rare given the number of teams and games in a season, and unlike hockey refs, who stand around watching the fight for a minute or two before breaking it up, MLB has a zero tolerance policy that results in heavy fines and suspensions for even the slightest altercation.
Why posted in “News”?
Good question. I noticed both the “News” and “General” areas have sports in their topics.
Why not simply ignore the thread, instead of posting two complaints to it? If you didn't want to read it, a perfect way to accomplish that goal is by not clicking the link. Duh.
I never played hockey as a kid and only watched pro hockey occasionally growing up (hard to avoid in Minnesota).
My 10 year old son plays and I’m starting to realize how much I missed.
He just finished playing at the squirt level this last season. He just started playing at the peewee level for Spring hockey. Spring hockey includes kids from a range of ages and he is on the younger and smaller end of the range. His first game with checking allowed was last night. He was knocked on his butt 6 times and took a jab into the side of the neck from the knob end of a defenseman’s stick. But he managed to get a couple hits in of his own and put in a power play goal. The game ended in a 2 - 2 tie.
All he could talk about at the end was the checks he delivered. Not the goal. He said only one of the checks he took hurt and he looked psyched to get back to it.
This post is more culture/sports. Something like Yankees Beat Red Sox is more chat/sports.
I think he meant ‘Red Sox Beat Yankees’ is chat/sports. ‘Yankees Beat Red Sox’ is news.
You guys are fricking awsome !
The success of the Flyers in the mid-1970s actually marked a low point for hockey in North America.
Thanks. Damn straight. LOL!
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