Fighting in Sports.

Fighting in hockey has become a big issue through the summer and throughout the regular season. Fighting has been brought to the forefront of the nations attention with the deaths of three enforcers in the summer. Wade Belak, Rick Rypien, and Derek Boogard all fought in the NHL for a living and this summer were all found to have taken their own lives. It has been a tragic summer for the families of the players, the NHL, and the hockey community as all these men were respected for what they did on and off the ice. Almost instantly with such major incidents such as 3 suicides an immediate backlash is sure to follow. With questions being raised such as why did this happen to these three, what did they have in common, and of course how can we stop this from ever happening again. Almost immediately people started to point fingers at the job and roles these men had on the ice, and it almost always comes back to the conclusion that fighting for a living played a major role in their suicides. I do not know how much of a role if any fighting played in these men’s decision to take their own lives. I do not want to speculate on why they would do this so I will not. This blog will only be my opinion on why I think fighting will stay in the game of hockey and how it doesn’t have such an adverse effect as people think, and again this is only my opinion. The first topic to look at when discussing fighting is player safety. I have heard numbers that say when a player fights one in five times he will suffer a concussion, I have also heard 25% of all concussions in the NHL come from fighting. Though I do agree that fighting is a dangerous task to take on, but these men are willing combatants and understand the risk that comes along with it. I know plenty of men who would trade jobs with any enforcer in the league and take the pay cheque, fame, and accolades that come along with being a professional hockey player. With that being said do I believe fighting needs to stay in all levels of hockey, no I do not. The CHL is an example where I think it doesn’t need to have a role. These kids are not being paid to play and many never will, the risk might be the same but the reward is not. And I know that people think hockey fights are brutal, but we should look at the only other sport right now that highlights contact to the head, which is MMA. If you were to watch 20 hockey fights in a row you might see one bad knockout where a player is left unconscious or dazed. If you flip it and watch 10 MMA fights you could see 5-7 brutal knockouts where guys are completely unconscious. So I understand that we as a nation are scared for our hockey player’s health and heads, but one of the fastest growing sports in the world and a huge market for that sport is Canada is MMA. I just find it contradictory that we as a nation feel this need to ban fighting in hockey at the pro level but we will pay top dollar to watch guys do it in a ring. Where is the same concern for the MMA fighter who takes shots to the head daily while in training and then takes more vicious shots to the head while in his fight. Seems like to me that society is alright with MMA fighters being carried out of the ring because it is expected but we defiantly don’t want our sport of hockey to have the same violent blood on its hands.