FORGET about the notion of fighting as part of hockey’s in trinsic nature. Forget about fighting acting as a safety valve for the athletes.
The players have become too big. Their punches pack too strong of a wallop. Those noble athletes who drop the gloves risk serious injury every time they do. Linesmen want no part of interceding, fearing as they should for their own safety. As such, bouts now last upwards of a full minute – a Colton Orr-Eric Boulton fight earlier this season at the Garden lasted 1:36 – thus increasing the risk of injury to the combatants.
Two seasons ago, in the aftermath of the fight in which Orr broke Todd Fedoruk’s face with a devastating punch, NHL VP Colin Campbell suggested the time had come for the league to at least investigate the possibility of eliminating fighting from the game.
Campbell was ahead of his time. For the time has come today for the NHL not only to investigate the possibility, the time has come for the NHL to abolish fighting. It’s simply too dangerous.
Watching heavyweight fights such as the one in Tampa on Wednesday between the Rangers’ Orr and Lightning’s David Koci has become the equivalent to viewing the aftermath of automobile accidents on the Interstate. They’re impossible to look at without becoming queasy.
Orr and Koci packed heavyweight-sized wallops in their punches on Wednesday. The crowd went berserk, probably much like the Romans who gloried in gladiators fighting to the death in the arena. As the players went to the penalty box, the fight was replayed on the scoreboard video screen. The spectators seemed to enjoy it even more the second time. It all had a demeaning quality to it.
Oh, and by the way, now comes the news that Koci suffered a broken hand in the fight, which is as benign an injury as either player might have suffered in the lengthy exchange of blows to the head.
Think about this for a second. As the NHL community debates outlawing hits to the head, it doesn’t give a second thought to allowing fights in which athletes punch one another in the head. Here’s a memo to NHL officials: Fighters are susceptible to concussions, too.
The historically accepted concept that the game would feature more (and more dangerous) stickwork if fighting were to be abolished is an antiquated one, for few fights are spontaneous. Most are between enforcers who are simply doing their prescribed duty, and often by appointment. Fights are an interlude, more apart from the game than a part of the game.
The NHL has refined its rules since the lockout to accommodate and showcase talent. Yet the league seems to be at a loss at how to modify its rules to protect the safety of its players.
Penalizing all checks to the head is a complex issue. Outlawing all punches to the head should not be. It’s time for the NHL to outlaw fighting; time for the NHL to act before injuries far more serious than the broken hand suffered by Koci become commonplace.
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Maybe Marty Turco, he of the dreadful 3.50 GAA and .871 save percentage, should have concerned himself more with stopping the puck than with letting everyone know how displeased he was by the Stars’ signing of Sean Avery.
And maybe the entire Dallas, uh, leadership group that includes Turco, Brenden Morrow and Mike Modano should have focused more on making Avery feel welcome rather than all but announcing that he was unwelcome as a teammate.
There’s no maybe about it. The dysfunction in Dallas started with them, not with Avery.
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Say, didn’t you used to be Mikka Kiprusoff?
Two goals, minus-six in 15 games, a cranky back and a bad team are no way at all for the Great Joe Sakic to go out in Colorado.
OK, your all-time top No. 19s – 1. Bryan Trottier; 2. Larry Robinson; 3. Sakic; 4. Steve Yzerman; 5. Jean Ratelle.
This just in: President Bush has refused to pardon Glen Sather for his signing of Wade Redden.