I have only been to two hockey games in my life, both times with my loving girlfriend. I can't remember who won or who played, but I do remember leaving to get food quick and coming back to pieces of gear on the ice. I walked down the steps with my big tub of crab fries to where my girlfriend, Macy, waited. She turned and looked at me and said, "You just missed a fight." I felt like I had been cheated from the whole hockey experience.
Fast forward a few years, I'm living with a New Jersey Devils fan. I still don't know much about the sport, but my room mate can always give me input. And one day he was discussing the ability of different hockey players, specifically how well they fight, with his girlfriend. It kind of got me interested in hockey's culture of fighting.
USA hockey rules dictate that every hockey player has to have a full cage (gear) before the age of 20. This protects them in a high velocity, contact sport. If you have ever seen these guys on skates, they can really move. They fly all over the ice, constantly bumping and shoving. Contact is a commonplace. And as the joke goes, "good luck finding a hockey player with a full set of teeth." This partly due to the hockey fighting culture.
In fights I have seen and been told about, the players take off their helmets. When they tear off the helmets, they are showing how tough they are. And fighting with a helmet is laughed at, looked down on and called "bitch fighting" by hockey fans. This brutal sideshow is part of hockey's legacy. It is considered a rough-and-tough sport. Heck, until 1980, you didn't even have to wear a helmet. With the increased worry over CTE, brain damage and concussions, many would think hockey's fight is slowly dying. And the culture of the "hockey fight" goes deeper.
Zdeno Chara plays for the Boston Bruins. He is a Slovak and current captain of the Bruins. The man is six feet and nine inches tall, off skates. Wearing skates he is just short of seven feet tall. He is also considered the Bruins's enforcer. This is not an official position but the enforcer acts as a sort of... deterrent. In the case of a dirty play from the opposing team, the enforcer is supposed to respond accordingly. Accordingly beginniing to fight or rough up an opposing player. Chara is a big man. Look on YouTube for any of his fights and you will see just how effective he is.
I am no hockey fan. And when I started learning about "enforcers" and fighting and writing this piece, I could not decide whether I was for it or against it. I am a boxer, a sport that centers around punching other people in the face. That is the nature of the sport though, and to many boxers across the world, it is much more than just slugging each other. But when I learned about hockey's history of fighting, I couldn't help but feeling that fighting in hockey is thuggish, while also respecting the nature of the beast. I am not the only one torn. Many across our nation and Canada are questioning the benefits of fighting in hockey. Fighting is a big draw for the crowds, but many other sports thrive without brawls. Every team in any sport can fight, but there are such stiff, harsh penalties. Whole baseball teams have been ejected more than once, in some cases. The penalty in hockey is five minutes in the penalty box. So decide for yourself, I along with many others, still are.
