Posted on 03/25/2008 6:27:58 PM PDT by canuck_conservative
Whenever the subject of hockey comes up, I'm the pansy who prattles on about how much he likes the European game — the big rinks, the passing, the fast players, and — most importantly, a lack of fighting. The fighting in North American hockey is one of the main reasons I stopped paying any attention to the sport a decade ago. What kind of legitimate sport has "enforcers" — whose mission is to engage other "enforcers" in the sort of activity that would get regular people arrested if they did it outside of a bar? I guess the closest analogy is rollerball — which is more or less the way many Americans view hockey.
Of course, every once in a while, someone "crosses the line" and does something particularly sociopathic — as goalie Jonathan Roy did by beating up his opposite number in a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League hockey playoff game Saturday night. And for a few days, we all pontificate over the incident, and tut-tut about how the player in question did not respect the "unwritten rules" governing ritualized combat on the ice.
But the real problem isn't idiots like Roy. It is that the hockey world has created a bizarre culture in which the idea of taking off your gauntlets and getting into fistfights with your opponent is considered a "normal" part of the game. So long as this convention persists, there will be fights, and some people will get carried away and do especially stupid things. Is it too much to ask that — in a society where violence is seen as a pathology in virtually every other context — maybe we should reexamine the century-old boys-will-be-boys idea that hockey games should be periodically stopped so that certain designated players can engage in medieval combat for the benefit of drunken fans?
jkay@nationalpost.com
(1) "You neglected to mention the artistry and surgical skill European hockey players demonstrate by removing an opponents spleen with their hockey sticks."
(2) "As compared to the neanderthalic tendencies of North American players clubbing each others vacuous craniums."
"I was watching a street fight one time when a hockey game broke out."
Hockey should just merge with MMA and be done with it.
Shouldn’t this be posted on a Sports Illustrated site?
I love when dopes write stuff like this. There is more fighting basketball than in hockey now.
Go back to your chardoney and your brie and let the big boys play.
(I am not saying that to you, I am saying it to the author of this piece of trash)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSOb_D1KZXA
We need to bring back old time hockey. Toe Blake, Eddie Shore.
I think that Cam Neely would have something to say about the clean crisp passing of Ulf Samuelson.
First of all the amount of fighting in US hockey has decreased. Second its fun to watch a fight now and then.
I think its great and it sure beats teaching our boys to be pansies.
“What kind of legitimate sport has “enforcers” — whose mission is to engage other “enforcers” in the sort of activity that would get regular people arrested if they did it outside of a bar?”
I agree about the enforcers. It’s too bad they have to have them. The fact remains however that watching Zetterberg and Datsyuk work together is like watching poetry in motion and I believe you are missing a good game if you cannot stomach a few rumbles. What I hate is when the enforcers target the skill players and try to take them out.
The Wings had to sign guys who could protect them.
Yup
There is more fighting basketball than in hockey now
LOL! Good one. Maybe tennis is more violent too? Or ice skating? Bull riding for sure!
Oooh...dang...he was a dirty player. Damn near killed Irvine Bailey with a cross check from behind.
maybe we should reexamine the century-old boys-will-be-boys idea that hockey games should be periodically stopped so that certain designated players can engage in medieval combat for the benefit of drunken fans?
Why stop there, just drag two drunken fans to middle ice give them sticks and let the dogs of hockey free.
“What kind of legitimate sport has “enforcers” — whose mission is to engage other “enforcers”
It’s a dimension used for psy ops . But you knew that . If you want to make some negative observations on or about the game we can start with the goaltending rules .
Well, they must show up drunk, if they really are. At $8.00 apiece, nobody's getting ripped on Arena beer.
I speak from experience.
Politics comes to mind.
“No touch” icing is for pansies.
Stephen Harper: “Politics is the bloodiest of sports.”
But the real problem isn’t idiots like Roy. It is that the hockey world has created a bizarre culture in which the idea of taking off your gauntlets and getting into fistfights with your opponent is considered a “normal” part of the game.
Capitalism bootcamp has taught me that the market was ready to be tapped into . In other words if the fans want to celebrate this sort of thing , the better question to ask is “ What kind of social order do we have when the public accepts it “ ?
Voyerism is as old as gladiator school and Canada as a whole did not market the product well enough to keep it as a product of Canada .
Derick Sanderson and Bobby Orr ... unstoppable dynamic duo.
Hockey is just like basketball, except that men play hockey.
The end zones on N.A. rinks are deeper than European rinks and thus negate the width difference.
While on-ice fighting has been severely curtailed with appropriate penalties handed out, it is still a necessary part of the game.
Anyone who cringes at the thought of the dropping of the gloves should switch their attention to figure skating.........
The sport has already been ruined by the ridiculous interference rules. There is no real defense played anymore. It’s like watching an NBA game. And don’t get me started on shootouts...
“Hockey is just like basketball, except that men play hockey.”
bravo bravo
I just luv Center Ice in HD on DTV; money well spent. I also have a brother-in-law who has never been to a game, yet hates hockey over something he doesn’t even get or understand.
I'd prefer to watch an Olympic gold medal round game than a Stanley Cup finals any day.
Ok, you write that you are a pansy (I was thinking of another word beginning with P).
Note that I have just dropped my gloves and given you the look. You are undoubtly turtling as I write.
;-)
For me it was closer to three decades ago. I used to attend about 35 games a year living a 100 or more miles from NYC. Now I normally wouldn't walk across the street to see a game for free. The fighting was one thing. But I also realized that I cared more about the games than the players did, which is just stupid. (Watching Brad Park trip over the red line, or Vic Hadfield grinning in the penalty box as the Rangers were losing the Stanley Cup final game was a sort of message to me. There's no one grinning as they're getting booted out of the NCAA tourney.)
ML/NJ
The international ice is 200 feet long and 98 feet wide. Goal lines are 13 feet from the end boards.
On an NHL rink, the blue line is 64 feet from the goal line and the two blue lines are 50 feet apart. In international hockey, the blue line is 58 feet from the goal line and the two blue lines are 58 feet apart. The Olympic game is much more wide-open -- not just because of the wider rink but because of the larger neutral zone.
It's great that our boys will associate masculinity with cheating. They'll learn that if someone else is better than them at something then violence is perfectly acceptable.
Really?
I don't watch anymore, except maybe when they get to the Stanley Cup semis. But I do see highlights at my gym in the morning and it seems they're always showing fights. Some guys in the locker room were talking about a Devils game they went to last week where the fights broke out during the warmups. I don't watch the NBA, but I probably see 50 NCAA BB games a year and I cannot recall ever seeing a fight.
ML/NJ
Please define "cheating."
In your country, the fans simply try to kill each other. Whether it’s setting the stands on fire, or pressing against fences, it’s always entertaining to watch soccer hooligans.
“It’s great that our boys will associate masculinity with cheating.”
Fighting in hockey isn’t cheating.
“They’ll learn that if someone else is better than them at something then violence is perfectly acceptable.”
Perhaps they’ll learn that they need to work hard for what they want. It has nothing to do with who is better it has to do with intimidation and its part of the game.
Do you think there isn’t intimidation in the NBA, NFL or MLB?
“But I do see highlights at my gym in the morning and it seems they’re always showing fights. Some guys in the locker room were talking about a Devils game they went to last week where the fights broke out during the warmups.”
Networks like ESPN ignore hockey, but show clips of the fights because that’s what they think people want to see. I saw a poll last year that asked two groups of people (regular hockey viewers and those who rarely see a game) how often fighting occurs. The group that rarely saw games believed that fighting happened four times as often as it actually did! Their perception was skewed by highlights and hearsay.
Yes, but the other great tradition of professional hockey--throwing yourself to the ice and flopping around like a fish in an attempt to draw a penalty--is.
This was written by a guy with the honest to God first name of Jonathan. Enough said.
I’d say the real problem with North American hockey is all the slots reserved for slow, unathletic Canadians who “earned” it by coming up through the Jr Hockey ranks.
Open the game up, speed the game up, and get rid of the no talent hacks...
Two of the most physically demanding sports out there, too.
What a nancy-boy!
What do you do when somebody cross-checks your frilly ass?
Hit them with your purse?
(Comment directed at author, not poster)
LMAO @ the guy typing that from his keyboard.
Tell that to Kurtis Foster.
And in his heyday, Peter Forsberg was one of the dirtiest players I ever saw.
“LMAO @ the guy typing that from his keyboard.”
LMAO @ the guy who is behind a keyboard inferring the guy commenting on hockey from behind a keyboard is somehow not manly because of that said keyboard.
You raise an interesting point. I'd say at the current size of the NHL, it's inevitable that you're going to have Jr. Hockey as the biggest source of your 'talent' (or non-talent, as the case may be). Get rid of a third of the league's teams, shorten the season to about 60 games (which increases the value of each game), and expand the playing surface (to put a premium on skating). Those would be my presciptions. But none of it will happen, since it would cost revenue initially.
Aside from the fact that that has to be the longest run on sentence on the books, do you have a point to make?
The "removing an opponents spleen with their hockey sticks" comment has a ring of truth to it. Take out the fighting altogether, and I think you will see more stick work as players use whatever is at their disposal to try to gain an advantage. It's an aggressive game, and if guys feel the need to drop the gloves and get it out of their systems, so be it.
If I want to watch a bunch of players pussy-footing around a large playing surface, I'll find a soccer game.
Yeah, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
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