4.22.2013

Safety Through Danger. (Why Banning Fighting Isn't the Answer)


In the last 10 years the number of concussions have increased significantly. The NHL has seen some of its biggest stars sidelined due to it. Another increasing trend in the NHL is fighting. In just this season alone there has been a 20 percent increase. There are people in the hockey world who want attribute these two facts to one another. However, those people would be wrong.

When delving further into situation at hand one must take into account what is happening in the league itself. In the old days, concussions were simply “getting your bell rung.” A player would shake it off and return to the game no more than five shifts later. Todays NHL however doesn’t have the same old school mantra. Players must sit out 15 minutes players must pass a concussion test before returning to the game.
           
This ability to better diagnose concussions is the reason for the increase in league concussions, and that is a good thing for the NHL. What wouldn’t be a good thing is associating this fact with fighting and removing it from the game.

A study by Dr. David Milzman and his colleagues viewed 710 NHL fights; out of those there were only 17 injuries. That equals players getting hurt in less than two percent of fights.  A different study showed that players most susceptible are centermen, not wingers, defenseman or enforcers.

Yet people who clamor for the banning of fighting in hockey want it believed that those enforcers are most at risk. To feed their rhetoric they used the unfortunate deaths of Rick Rypien, Wade Belak, and Derek Boogaard as fuel for their fire. Time proved that the three were coincidental tragedies , and in no way related to the job they held while playing professional hockey.

It is that job in hockey that keeps not only the number of concussions down, but also the number of total injuries down as well. Yet in the 1993 season enforcers found it incredibly hard for them to do their job. The NHL issued the instigator rule.

This rule led to the rise of the rats. Players Like Matt Cooke, Raffi Torres, and Patrick Kaleta, have injured numerous players and one ended Marc Savard’s career. How they play is on the edge of the rules, fighting makes these players accountable. However, with the instigator rule these players don’t have to fight, and can flourish in their roles.

The fact that those players are allowed to play at the top of their game with little consequences feeds the NHL’s injury epidemic. Suspensions can only last for so long, especially when the NHLPA fights for the players right to fair suspensions.

It’s not just instigator rule that adds to the rise of players getting injured, it’s the game itself. Players are now bigger and faster, and the rules in place are designed from them to be even faster.

No redline, no hooking and holding, the game is sped up to a pace that was never seen before. Players are getting hurt just cutting across the ice, and not even on hits just plain incidental contact.

These rules were put in place to make the game more exciting, yet they made the game more dangerous. Fundamentally changing the game, and taking out fighting will have the same effect.

Hockey is a dangerous game, played by grown men at close quarters with extreme physicality. This physicality leads to big hits, high emotions, and cheap shots. All players know the risk they take when the lace up their skates. They know a hit can end a career faster than a fight. Just ask Marc Savard. Fighting keeps the players honest, and the game clean.