Toronto Star - According to a Toronto Star-Angus Reid online poll, 63 percent of Canadian hockey fans oppose any ban on fighting in the game.
"They felt that if you were to take fighting out, it would significantly affect their enjoyment of the game," said Mario Canseco of Angus Reid.
A lot of banter and changes have been going around concerning hockey fight. Spicolli and I both know a thing or two about that after being teammates on several teams that sometimes made up for lack of experience or talent with brute force. That being said, this is my view on fighting:
The real purpose of hockey fighting should be two fold.
1-It should be a method to prevent serious injuries due to slashing, boarding, and cheap shots. We saw an increase of these types of injuries any time they have tried to restrict fighting. Marty kicking peoples asses so that Wayne didn't get ruined was valuable to the entire NHL. Imagine if the Great One's career had been cut short by a Pronger type slash? baaaad for the NHL.
2-It is certainly entertainment. You don't need a poll to know how fans feel about it. There is still this weird perception though that if you remove it the sport would be bubblegum enough for mainstream viewing. Well it might be tame enough, but it would not be as popular either and the sport needs CPR as it is currently.
We've seen a return to a classic scrapper type. Throwbacks to the days when Domi, Marty, Probert, and Tiger Williams. Today we have guys with reps who respect the art regardless of their reckless images and larger than ever physiques:
Parros, Laroques, Boogaard(which is by the way the ultimate ghost pirate name).... maybe Raitis or the up and coming Westgarth- all guys with some Mortal Combat type character development to them. I think we need these guys in the NHL.
So New Rules coming eh?-
They supposedly are aiming to stop fights that are pre-meditated (aka the pre faceoff chat) and fights that happen as the result of clean checks.
I am all for the latter. I hate when the game is stopped after a big hit. It's counter productive to entertainment and lame. A perfect game has a series of big hits and also a pair of enforcers who want to know where they rank against each other.
So as Mary Antoinette Cherry might have said:
Let them eat fist!
