NYP_BrooksieLarry Brooks
Beyond me how anyone could endorse fighting in NHL (or hockey) in aftermath of John Branch's landmark work in Times on Boogaard.
I completely agree. I like UFC. I love the fighting. I love the skill of the fight and sometimes I just love a good knock out. But this is a sport where fighting is what you sign up for from the start. It is sanctioned and you fight someone of equal weight and similar skill/compotency. If you get hit hard and go down you land on a mat, not rock hard ice.
In the NHL there is this "code of honour" nonsense that guys like Cherry talk about. Guys who don't want to fight feel that they have to and they are pressured into it (either directly or indirectly). Guys often end up fighting someone much bigger, much stronger and much more skilled at fighting. Hands are broken and heads get rattled - none harder than when they fall and hit the ice.
I love fighting, but when I watch hockey I would prefer to watch hockey. Last nights Leafs/Rags game would have been just as exciting without the fight.
I believe that within 5 years fighting will be out of the game and that a few years after that people will look back and won't even be able to imagine it anymore because it will seem that stupid and that out of place. Until that day comes, hopefully there will not be any more Boogard stories.
Beyond me how anyone could endorse fighting in NHL (or hockey) in aftermath of John Branch's landmark work in Times on Boogaard.
I completely agree. I like UFC. I love the fighting. I love the skill of the fight and sometimes I just love a good knock out. But this is a sport where fighting is what you sign up for from the start. It is sanctioned and you fight someone of equal weight and similar skill/compotency. If you get hit hard and go down you land on a mat, not rock hard ice.
In the NHL there is this "code of honour" nonsense that guys like Cherry talk about. Guys who don't want to fight feel that they have to and they are pressured into it (either directly or indirectly). Guys often end up fighting someone much bigger, much stronger and much more skilled at fighting. Hands are broken and heads get rattled - none harder than when they fall and hit the ice.
I love fighting, but when I watch hockey I would prefer to watch hockey. Last nights Leafs/Rags game would have been just as exciting without the fight.
I believe that within 5 years fighting will be out of the game and that a few years after that people will look back and won't even be able to imagine it anymore because it will seem that stupid and that out of place. Until that day comes, hopefully there will not be any more Boogard stories.
