Our love of hockey dates back to the 1960s, the golden era when “Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Boston Bruins” (that was the title of a book that we’ve had since our youth) ruled the hockey world and the B’s were the toast of the town.
We recall the bad blood between the Bruins and some of their notable opponents, the Canadiens and the Rangers (among others), and well recall the game when Derek Sanderson got into a fight with a member of the Chicago Black Hawks — Sandy pulled off an opponent’s jersey and then, while skating around the rink, jersey in hand as if it were a trophy, tossed it into the stands (in Chicago!).
Fighting was not merely just a part of the game, it was even expected. Each team had its “enforcer” who could be expected to take a run at the other team’s star player, which in turn would trigger a retaliatory run by the enforcer on the other side, and mayhem inevitably would be the result.
We were just youngsters at the time and just accepted it as “part of the game.” It was a time when goalies still didn’t wear masks and certainly no player wore a helmet.
Times have changed. Goalies wear expensive masks and every player is helmeted. Teams no longer devote a roster spot to an enforcer and rates of fighting have decreased significantly.
But fighting remains a part of the game and is tolerated to an extent not seen in any other sport. The fans still lust for blood and cheer with every punch. ESPN shows the highlights of every fight.
We were thinking about this as we were watching — and thoroughly enjoying — the Olympic hockey matches these past two weeks. It was so nice to watch a game with no flights and none of the chippiness and illegal hits that are trademarks of the NHL. The teams just skated relentlessly up and down, without the long delays caused by brawling and fighting.
Fighting remains a vestige of pro hockey’s brutal past — and in our view, the sooner the NHL bans it all together (which it could easily do with harsher penalties than just a five-minute major), the better.
The time has come to retire the Rodney Dangerfield joke, “I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.”