Another Poll, Same Results

So 63 per cent of Canadians who call themselves hockey fans want fighting in the game according to a poll in the Star today.

And 61 per cent of Canadians in general think fighting should be banned. And that leaves us where?

Well, in the same place. A similar poll a couple of months ago showed basically the same results, which were discussed over and over in this blog.

The pro-fighting crowd believes this should, in some way, end the discussion.

Ah, don't think so.

The reality is that 37 per cent of hockey fans don't like fighting, and without a shred of evidence to support it, my guess would be that's a share that has increased steadily over the past 25 years.

But the pro-fighting crowd still rules the roost, which means in the NHL, North American minor pro hockey and major junior hockey in Canada engaging in a fight generally only means a five-minute major.

But sanctions continue to crowd around the actions of fighters, including new ones proposed by NHL general managers just last week.

So the days when fighters set their own agenda are over. And the day when fighters in most leagues - including the NHL - are booted for fighting aren't far off. A decade, perhaps.

Change takes a long time in a sport as deeply-rooted in tradition as hockey. When I grew up in the 1970s, bench-clearing brawls were common, and there were just as many folks willing to justify them as there willing to provide rationales for fighting today.

Eventually, bench-clearing scraps were legislated out of existence.

Today, there are new rules against fighting in the OHL and QMJHL. Last week, instead of getting rid of the instigator penalty, the root of all evil according to the pro-fighting crowd, NHL GMs voted to use it more aggressively.

So change is a-coming, and the tide is unstoppable. Hockey, the great game that it is, will only be greater when fighting vanishes from the landscape. Of course, those of us who don't need it in the NHL only have to wait about a month when the element that some argue is so indispensable to the game totally disappears during the NHL playoffs, the most meaningful time of the year.

So, those of you that love it so much when the gloves get dropped, wrap yourself in today's poll if it makes you feel better. And enjoy the last few days of the NHL fighting season. I'm sure the game will be so lousy without fighting once the playoffs begin you'll find something else to watch.

But understand your days of being in the majority are dwindling. Enjoy it while you can. And let the argument rage on!

Comments

[bobbyshow]

Damien, the fighting doesn't completely disappear in the playoffs but, in most cases, the fighters do. I think most people would be satisfied if the fighters were players, if you catch my meaning. If the coaches had to play their goons a minimum amount, say closer to 10 minutes than to five, then coaches might not be so inclined to give the goons the tap.

[Andy Frank]

well stated as usual, mr. cox - hockey is more than the "fans" game, it is our national sport, and many long ceased being "fans" because of the silly goonery. Take it out, wait 10 years, do another poll asking "should we introduce fighting into hockey" and see how many support it then!

[D.Boucher]

I am very happy to hear sportscasters and writers finally taking a stand against hockey fighting, it's taken a while. Judge Judy was on Larry King Live last night, she says that once you are ok with putting your fist in someones face in anger you'll do it again and again. Competitive sports requires disipline, it's controled aggression, without disipline it's just violence. Not to mention the fact that you're teaching children that problem resolution involves violence. If I were a woman I wouldn't marry one! Unless of course, you don't mind a good fight!

[Dennis Regan]

I'm trying hard to hang on, but not sure that I can.
Meat-heads always have run the world, and always will. The only way to get them out of hockey is to drastically change the consequences for fighting (and for scheduling it Mr. Burke).
I'm slowly drifting away from the game after fifty years of it. I flip the channel every time a fight breaks out and often, don't really want to return.
Meaningless goon shows are not as exciting as bingo.
Thank god for the playoffs.

[Kevin Taylor]

Wow Damien...37% that may count as a majority in Quebec but not in the rest of the world. Don't you hate it when real hard data supports the other side of the argument? Yet you still feel compelled to spin it appease the minions of the minority. Maybe politics is your calling? I think it sounds like a case of "Sour Grapes" to me.

[Stins]

You are completely wrong yet again Damien. Do you think that taking fighting out of the NHL will make the regular season as exciting as the playoffs? Seems like thats what you are saying. The only thing that could make the playoffs better is a few more good dust ups. Oh yeah its so entertaing when players like Avery have free reign to go all over the ice taking cheap shots at the star players in the playoffs because they know there is no retrobution. didn't you love they way he was against Philly the other night? gotta love cheap shots against superior talent in Jeff Carter.

Once again you are looking at something from the complete oposite side. It is the intensity, the knowing that if you loose one game your season could be over, the passion on ever shift that makes the playoffs exciting, you will never get that in the regular season, unless it is in the last few games, or there is an anticipated rivalry. A great scrap every now and then could only make playoffs better.

you need to start covering figure skating. although may be that is too exciting for you as well.

[Chris P.]

The non-existent debate rages on. Fighting is here to stay. Get over it folks.

[jimbag]

Game one, Leafs/Kings, 1993. That pretty much says it all.

[Gerald Langdon]

Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest hockey players ever, wants to keep fighting in hockey. Why, he wasn't a fighter? Because he knows he couldn't have been the player he was without someone to protect him against the goons who would have been happy to injure him to win the game; or the cup. Without fighting, the goons likely would have shortened his career or at least diminished his accomplishments. Gretzky knows it, and most people who played hockey know it. Oh, and anyone who stopped being a fan because of fighting wasn't much of a fan anyhow.

[Helen McCarthy]

To: Hockey Fighters c/o,Mr. Cox,
If you can, you play. If you can't, you fight.
Fighters,get out of the way of really talented young players.Retreat to the stands where you belong and enjoy the show as young geniuses perfect their game with skating,passing,shooting excellence, and brilliant anticipation,execution and recovery strategies. Go Hockey!

[Spungo]

I agree with my friends here that fighting must be eliminated completely from hockey. Next step is to remove the goonish, meatheaded concept of bodychecking.

I've been a fan of hockey for 80 years and it gets more difficult to watch as each year passes and players continue to bodycheck eachother. Only a meatheaded goon would impose his will physically on another human being via the bodycheck. It's far too violent and sends our children the wrong message.

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!???!!!???

[Jason]

I like the Kings-Leafs reference.
Cox tell me you didn't like the Clark-McSorley fight I dare you. Two guys who could play hockey were going at it and theres nothing wrong with that.
Tell me how without fighting how that series would be more exciting?

[Juan Velasquez]

Does anyone here watch the Playoffs?
Fighting does not disappear because of the playoffs.
There is fighting every year in the playoffs - it's pretty intense hockey!
Does anyone recall the Leafs/Isles series in 02? That was the roughest playoff series I have ever seen.

Fighting is a part of the game and will stay apart of the game.

Damian, you'll have alzheimers and love in a home before fighting is taken out of hockey.

[dale tonelli]

i don't think fighting could be banned because fighting exists in all sports. But i think if you fight you are tossed from the game. if you fight in final 2 minutes you are tossed from next game. fights will always happen but we do need to stop saying it's part of the game. it is not. it happens as i say in all sports, but's it is not part of other games. you should still allow it to happen, but the penalty becomes an ejection...that way players will think twice and have to decide if they need "an outlet" and if it is worth it.

[PlatinumCard]

Are there that many fights? I know that the number of fighting majors has gone up since the ducks won the cup, but that will largely be negated over time as teams emulate other successful systems. What is the impetus for this discussion? It was only spurred onward, not started by the death of the ontario league player. If there is a problem with fighting, why was it done for so many years? i mean, all of the years, from the beginning of time man has been fighting man, and i don't mean warring, but rather wrestling/fighting man against man. Is it barbaric? Pluto didn't thinks so. Neither did Socrates. Neither did Lincoln. Neither did countless other extraordinarily smart men - fighting is primal and it is exhilarating and it is motivating and that's why hockey players and others are fired up by it. Now, is the brutalization of your fellow man exhilarating or motivating, not to me, which is why the participants feel better if they express a list of "Won'ts" ie, this code that is talked of so much. Well, i don't think such a code exists in practical application, just a list of things that they'd feel sorry for after the fact, should they be unable or unwilling to control themselves. But has that lessened the human desire for physical release? WE don't allow fighting in general society, you have to sign up to be beaten up, but does that lessen fun? Naw, fighting is great and it rarely seriously injurs people. It hurts them, sure, and some broken hands maybe, but people are playing a high contact sport with the propensity for broken bones and head injuries anyway, i mean, damien, wouldn't you be better served arguing against the brutality of rugby? Or MMA for that matter?

Hockey, you say, is better without fighting, and those of us who disagree can fill our bloodlust somewhere else, like MMA(which I find disgusting btw), but the reality is that you'd like to change the game(fighting being a part of it since it's creation). Why don't you watch ringette or women's hockey? They've got the attributes you prefer.
I'm not saying stop writing about it, and the reality is that you're using your position to influence the game, a position i envy, but directing the people interested in preserving something to go find something else is counterintuitive. You should find something you like if you don't like NHL hockey.

[Dave So]

I think Damien has hit the nail on the head when he says that times are a changin' and that sooner or later (I agree with his 10 year prediction) that fighting will be gone.

[Mark Hillard]

I am not a fan of fighting in Hockey. I enjoy the sport, but I prefer fights to be sanctioned under the Queensbury Rules. My question is what would be the resultant behaviour and tactical changes that players and coaches would make if fighting were banned. I have heard suggestions by fight fans that the players self police by using fighting. The response from fighting skeptics is that stricter enforcement of contact and behaviour on the ice would allevaite the need for self policing. I know that in soccer, this happens, and the result is that players deliberately and notoriously simulate and embellish physical contact, in order to reap the benefit of the punishment handed out to opponents. Is this likely to happen in Hockey? I would suggest it is.

[Lost In Alberta]

Well said. What the polls fail to capture is how many people aren't hockey fans BECAUSE OF fighting! I know quite a few people who fall into that category. Personally, I am a hardcore fan IN SPITE OF fighting.

[James Burton]

Damian, I'm starting to wonder if you did your apprenticeship under Howard Stern. It seems like you write stuff just to get a reaction. You take something you know will cause a stir just to get a reaction and sell papers. Do you honestly believe what you write? You say you try to be neutral but I can't remember the last article that was positve in any way. You seem to use your coloumn to push your causes or your peeves. It's a little tiring but like a sucker I keep reading to see what you wrote, its usually good for a laugh. As a journalist, I would think you would shoot a little higher though.

[Spungo]

Times certainly are changing, Dave. In current times, UFC cage fighting is regarded as mainstream entertainment. In fact, it is regularly covered in this very newspaper. Does anyone actually believe UFC style cage fighting would have been allowed in the 1970's or 1980's?

Spciety is getting MORE accepting of violence as entertainment, not less.

Prediction: The Toronto Star will be out of busines (or online only) LONG before fighting is gone from hockey.

[paul]

Damien and fellow writers and broadcasters who have take up the cause against fighting.... give it a rest... lets take more about whats right with the game... i have been a Leaf and hockey fan since 1964... but then came expansion and if it wasn't for a player like Wendel Clark who could shoot, body check, and fight with the best of them i don't think i would still be a fan at all... enforcing obstruction has made the game better and i am okay if you want enforce the rules on fighting more... but when i go to a game nothing brings the crowd more to their feet than a great goal, a good hit, and in the heat of the moment two players squaring off and dropping the gloves!!!

[Peter S]

Please provide a list of these so-called sheriffs who have defended the honour of the game by fighting, and didn't at the same time cross the line by delivering cheap shots during their careers (Dale Hunter's 21 gamer for hitting Turgeon in ’93 ring a bell here?), and don’t for a second get on that “it was a mistake of passion during the game, and he is truly sorry” wagon, since these kinds of heart string “tuggers” are simply used to make excuses for players who consistently demonstrate poor ethical and moral judgments, while also setting a bad example for the future generation of players (i.e. tell ‘em your sorry enough and eventually the problem goes away).

If pro-fighters are still in the majority, than so be it. Goons have always taken away from the quality of the game, and will continue to do so, but in this instance they will be helping take away the future players from the game (and the supposed stars they are out to protect) as more and more fans turn their backs on this dinosaur exhibit and enroll themselves and their kids into other sports.

Admittedly, the majority of people who run and cover the sport of hockey (insert Canada’s major sports network coverage panels here) are in favor of fighting. I have been in the coverage rooms when a fight breaks out and the crowd starts yelling and calling bets (including the on-air reporting staff), but there is a major swell in the works that goes against the beliefs of the old-guard.

So wake up out there, the game of hockey may be part of our national heritage, but one can't expect that to translate to no questions asked blind loyalty to a game that has been left in the dust for the past 10-15 years in terms of development and structure.

Here’s to a game that hasn’t been the same since the 1st lockout of 94-95! Because pretty soon, all that will be left are the memories.

“Cheers”

[David Bacque]

I hate it when I agree with you Damien. Fighting is just about done in hockey and really so it should be. My problem is the one raised about cheap shots and dirty little punks like Sean Avery and others. They are the ones who degrade the game with cheap shots for which there are no penalties - either during the game or from retribution. I remember the fall of 1972 when the cowardly display of spearing, kicking and hacking went without penalty because fighting, under international rules, meant ejection. That was by the Russians! Team Canada responded by playing their game and it was truly awful to see things like Bobby Clarke maiming more skilled players. We are now taken over by what was deplored as cheap shot hockey back when you grew up and the problem hasn't changed. The skill players are gooned so much you can't call all the penalties and therefor ineffective (Lemieux) or become whiners/divers like well, let's just say from the same franchise (my favourite for 30 years by the way). Are we headed for "The Beautiful Game" on ice? I surely hope we can finally put out a product that highlights the best and doesn't condone the lowest of the game.

[Ivan Froese]

I am genuinely asking, did you ever play hockey Mr. Cox? And if so, to what level?

[James]

What is next, ban hitting? The policing of its own is the whole reason for fighting. You will see an increase in high sticking as the soft, dirty players will realize there is no way for anyone to get back at them and start to resort to stickwork.

Also, in this world of shrinking ratings, there is no way the league should consider something that could hurt their viewership either way. If it dies in the US, it dies everywhere because the canadian market isn't big enough to support the game. Americans watch Nascar to see crashes, many watch hockey for the fights.