St. Louis Blues: Why Fighting Should Remain In Hockey

The St. Louis Blues, the NHL and the sport of hockey are making changes to the game to make it safer. While this should be applauded, the act of fighting should remain a part of the game.

The St. Louis Blues have been changing their roster makeup, as have several NHL teams, over the course of the last decade or so. The emphasis is on skill up and down the lineup now, making the days of the old-school enforcer all but gone.

One can argue whether that makes the game better or not, and that is an ongoing argument among fans, players and executives alike. Much of it depends on your own sensibilities.

However, the growing sentiment from the outsiders looking in is that the elimination of fighting within the game of hockey is something that must be achieved. Their arguments are it is archaic, unnecessary and would make the game safer. The funny part is that the first part of that – being archaic – might be the only true part.

As far as everyone can tell, fighting has been a part of the game since the start of the NHL and likely before. Being a part of a game since the beginning does not automatically make something right, but it is deeply ingrained.

For anyone that suggests it is unnecessary, I urge you to watch the documentary Ice Guardians. Even if you remain opposed to fighting after viewing it, it will help you realize that the story we have all been fed is not one of truth and the stats that so many rely upon are not correct.

Concussions

We’ve been led to believe that fighting is the cause of concussions and even the deaths of recent players, simply because those players happened to be enforcers. Left out of the narrative was any substance abuse problems because that can complicate the story. Left out of the main narrative is that 95% of hockey related concussions are actually due to collisions with shoulders, checks, into the boards and onto the ice as opposed to fists.

That’s too complicated a picture though. It is easier to point to one thing as the root of evil. So, because our minds can better handle the idea that a punch to the head is bad, we latch onto that as the main cause for anything bad in the sport.

A notable point made in Ice Guardians was the false corrolation between concussions and fighters. Of the major names that retired in the NHL due to concussions lately, the vast majority were skill players. Chris Pronger, Andy McDonald, Eric Lindros, Paul Kariya, Geoff Courtnall and Mike Richter all retired mainly due to concussions. Only Pronger and Lindros would even be considered close to fighters out of that list and they still dropped the gloves only on rare occasion.

Mislabeled Players

Though the human brain is the one of the most complex in all the animal kingdom, we still gravitate toward the simple ideas, if for no other reason than being lazy. That’s why we jam ourselves into two political parties when the idea that you can share all your core values and agree on gigantically important issues with 50% of the population is ludicrous. It’s why some of the most popular movies of all time can still be boiled down to simple concepts of good and evil.

More from Editorials

• St. Louis Blues Need Kasperi Kapanen To Be On Best Behavior
• Hayes’ Debut And Other Bold Predictions for the St. Louis Blues
• St. Louis Blues Captaincy Is Suddenly A Huge Problem For 2023-24
• St. Louis Blues National Games Cause More Problems Than They’re Worth
• St. Louis Blues Brayden Schenn Has To Be An Impact Player In 2023-24

It’s easier for our minds to handle. We know we can’t eliminate injury from sport and we know we don’t want to take the physicality out, so we find one thing that seems most objectionable and pinpoint that. It’s easier. It’s easier to say those who oppose us are wrong or evil, like the current political climate. It is easier to slap lables, like goon, on someone because they do something we do not like.

The reality is far more complex. When you look at true enforcers over the course of history, they were often times some of the most well-liked players and fan-favorites.

The Blues are a prime example. In the 90’s, there were probably just as many Tony Twist jerseys at any game as there were Brett Hull jerseys. Ryan Reaves is probably as popular a player as any skilled player the Blues have had in decades.

Sure, there are plenty of fans that would rather have had an extra goal scorer than those players. However, there are fans that are not satisfied with the production of Vladimir Tarasenko. There are fans that wanted Hull out or didn’t appreciate Pavol Demitra. We cannot automatically assume either side is wrong. It’s an opinion.

If some fans dislike a fight for the simple reason they do not like the action of punching another human in the face, almost everyone can respect that. It is those that think hockey can survive without fights and would be safer/better without it that should be taken issue with.

Can hockey be played without fights? Yes. However, that does not automatcially mean it is safer. If 95% of concussions come from non-fight related impacts, then the only way to truly make the game safer would be to eliminate all hitting together. Even someone known for his size and power, like Eric Lindros has come out and said that should be an option.

There might be plenty of people that are fine with fighting’s elimination, but would we really be alright with no contact at all? Personally, that’s not the game I fell in love with but you cannot disregard the idea totally when one of the potential greats that had his career shortened by concussion suggests it.

Other fans, such as Michael Wilbon, point to the Olympic style as evidence of how great the game is without fighting. I get the argument, but it is apples to oranges.

The Olympics are a short tournament, played over the course of two weeks. You cannot compare a two week span to an 80-plus game season. It is also a different style of hockey. Rinks are often bigger and your mentality changes when you know you only have so many games. Look at the NHL playoffs. There are few-to-no fights there because any loss in man-power or potential suspension is highlighted even more due to the extreme nature of each win and loss.

Things are different during an 80-plus game season. You have a different opponent every night. Each night brings a new set of players, each one looking to stop your best player by any means, taking their cheap shots and/or sending messages.

That last part is a major reason why fighting should/must remain. One of the points of emphasis in the documentary Ice Guardians was to point out the differences in style.

Rise of Dirtier Players

Fans against fighting point to European leagues banning it. However, the documentary pointed out players that have played on both sides of the Atlantic say European leagues are often worse for dirty play and dirty stick-work because players know they have no price to pay.

The same is, even if anecdotally, true in the NHL. After opening up the game and putting in more rules to eliminate enforcers, injuries to star players feel like they have been on the rise.

How many times did we see guys like Hull or Gretzky injured? Yes, they missed games because it’s a tough sport, but the guys are out much more these days. Sydney Crosby has had multiple concussions and missed boatloads of time because enforcement went down.

We rely on this idea that you can police the game through officiating. That’s like saying more police officers will totally eliminate crime. It works on paper, but not in reality.

The reality is that athletes will do whatever they can to gain an edge. If that means taking a two-minute penalty for breaking someone’s hand with a slash, then so be it.

We need look no further than Tom Wilson for a prime example.  The guy is far too talented to be taking such careless hits as he does.  However, following another another pending suspension after a preseason game with the Blues, Wilson will have been suspended four times in a calendar year.

Clearly he does not care how many games he misses or how many minutes he is penalized in a game.  He knows he will not pay a physical price, so he’s willing to take liberties with how he goes into body checks.  While we do not like it involving our own players, why not do that if you’re not going to have to stand up for it later?

If you play for Washington and you know you’ll gain two or three games in the standings by banging up Crosby, you’ll do it even if the penalty might cost you that game. When you knew you’d have to pay a physical price either that game or the next, it rarely happened.

There is a reason guys as thin as Gretzky got to play so many games. They had guys on their team that could protect them from the cheap shots.

I’m all for more skill, up and down the lineup, but there are consequences to that. We’re seeing more stars such as Ovechkin, Tarasenko, Crosby and more miss time due to slashes and leg-on-leg hits and shoulders to the head. Today’s players are not necessarily dirtier than they were in the past, but they have no deterrent.

You take any athlete and tell them you can sit two minutes for your actions or take a punch to the face, they’ll take the two minutes. That’s why penalties, alone, are not a deterrent.

The funny thing is that we’ve all fallen for the media-driven sentiment. We all want more goals and to have a team that rolls out four lines.

All we are really doing is spreading the same amount of scoring thinner, like the same amount of butter over more bread.

By eliminating enforcers and reducing fighting, you’ve opened up the game and things are faster. Goals per game are less now than they were at the height of the time of enforcers.

I argue that if you called hooking and slashing the way you do today in the 90’s, you’d have the perfect game. You had less padding in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and yet stars stayed in for full seasons because they were not launched into and players feared the fight that would come later if they did. The only thing slowing the game down back then was all the stick work, which has not been eliminated even with more penalties being handed out.

However, we buy into this false narrative of eliminating the goons. Somehow we remember the fact that these guys did not score and that makes them less of a hockey player. Never mind the idea that a team consisting of Twist, Chase, Reaves, Plager and Thorburn would probably mop the ice with your average team of “skilled” players. We forget that, because they filled a role, they made it to the NHL by being good hockey players too. Not every player scored like Gretzky and not every player could fight like Twist.

Sadly, in the end, those of us watching the game today will likely see fighting eliminated at some point. The cultural winds seem to be blowing in that direction. Those of us that still appreciate the art hope it sticks around. Ice Guardians can currently be seen on Netflix.