It’s Not The Fighting, It’s The Dirtiness

Rugged Penguins left-wing Paul Bissonnette fights Maple Leaf defenceman Francois Beauchemin at the Toronto blue line in the third period of a pre-season game at Air Canada Centre, September 22, 2009.

Penguins’ co-enforcer Paul Bissonnette fought twice more last night to raise his pre-season total to five dust-ups.  A quick scan of the scoresheet indicates the Pens and Blue Jackets engaged in six fights.  Thinking back to this past Tuesday’s game versus Toronto I counted three scraps and Bissonnette dropped the gloves twice that night as well.

Already in the pre-season, we have witnessed the first suspension of the season, resulting from a fight.  Islanders forward Pascal Morency jumped off the bench to fight hard-hitting Dion Phaneuf immediately after Morency’s teammate, Kyle Okposo, was knocked out from an open-ice hit by the Calgary defenceman.

With fists flying left and right, in arenas east and west, before a puck has even dropped in a meaningful game, the inevitable, endless debate about the place of fighting in hockey has surfaced once again.

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Veteran Toronto Star columnist Damien Cox wrote an insightful piece on Thursday about how the league proposed new rules and penalties to crack down on staged fights this past June – those that occur right after a faceoff – only to be rebuffed by the Players’ Association, specifically, the fighters.  Cox reasons that the missed opportunity to stifle staged fights and lax enforcement of the instigator penalty has led to more fight-interrupted games.

I agree with his deduction, but beg to differ with any calls for an absolute ban on fighting.

It is precisely because of the inability of hockey’s judiciary (the NHL and NHLPA) and laxity and inconsistency on the part of hockey’s law enforcement (the referees) that forces teams to keep one or two nomadic law enforcers (vigilantes/bounty hunters/fighters/fill-in-your-own-synonym) on their rosters.

To continue the legal analogy, remember that in any civil society, laws and punishments are established to act as a restraint and deterrent against evildoers and to serve as a protector for law-abiding citizens.  When punishments are lenient or not consistently doled out by law enforcers, criminals then become emboldened to escalate their rebellious ways.  Facing imminent anarchy and personal harm, the good citizens of society have no choice but to turn to hired vigilantes to secure protection and to restore safety.

The same principles apply to hockey and the role of the fighter.  With the exception of star power forwards like Gordie Howe, Mark Messier or Jarome Iginla, who could and can fight their own battles, scoring stars typically focus on shooting and passing the puck.  Inevitably, the star will garner attention from the opposition in the form of spearing, slashing, elbowing, kneeing, roughing, tripping, hooking, holding, boarding and a general physical beat-down.  Clearly, the referees cannot see every infraction, nor will they assess a penalty every time.  This is when the enforcer steps in and patrols the ice, by his existence warning opposing agitators away from committing any further nonsense against their skilled teammates and if necessary, meting out corporal punishment to the ignorant recidivists.

Would Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri have had as much space to romp in their Edmonton heyday without the deterring presence of Kevin McClelland and Marty McSorley?  Or put another way, would Mario Lemieux have exasperatedly walked away from the game in 1997 at thirty-one, tired of being poked, prodded and abused by opponents, if he still had a Kevin Stevens, a Rick Tocchet or even a Jay Caufield at his side?

Therefore, I do not disagree that fighting for its own sake needs a set of penalties as a deterring measure, but anytime I hear calls for blanket bans on fighting, I need to repeat the same message again: unless fans want to see Crosby or Evgeni Malkin or Pavel Datsyuk or Martin St. Louis or Zach Parise laying on the ice again and again, knocked out at the hands of an opposing thug who knows he can get away with it, then those same fans better rethink their position on the place of fighting in hockey.

What needs to be swept quickly out of hockey are the crosschecks aimed at the upper back, any form of boarding from behind and so-called “clean” but still dangerous shoulder-to-head open-ice hits.  This general dirtiness should be of far greater concern and is of far greater danger to any player simply because of the suddenness of its occurrence and the physical impact on a player’s head or neck.  Two players generally agree to a fight, but on a dirty play, only one player, the dirty one, knows ahead of time what calculated, dirty method he will use to knock his target senseless.

Randy Jones never gave forewarning to Patrice Bergeron when he rammed him into the boards.  Todd Bertuzzi never gave forewarning to Steve Moore when he sucker-punched and tackled him.  Claude Lemieux never gave forewarning to Kris Draper when he rammed him into the boards.  In all three cases, severe injuries resulted including concussions or trauma to the brain, face or spine, and of course, Moore’s career was finished.

For all those concerned about the health of the game, fighting should not be your enemy.  Dirty play is the enemy; it always has been.  Hockey at all levels, from house league to major junior to college to minor leagues to the NHL should institute some form of education to players on the dangers of hits from behind and the resulting damage to the brain and spine.  Concussions and their long-lasting effects should also be explained.  Unless penalties and suspensions are severely increased for dirty hits and unless players rediscover the concept of mutual respect and self-restraint, safety in hockey will always remain an unachievable dream.

Sources: thestar.com, nhl.com, hockeyfights.com

Photo: PenguinsMarch personal collection