"Step right up you saps and lemmings! Give us your money and shut your face. And if we want your opinion we'll give it to you!"
You probably think I pulled that line off of the confidential NHL's marketing strategy documents. I didn't, but I can't blame you for thinking so. Bettman and Co. continue to do business on the spilled blood of their players, and as more of their franchises continue to go quietly broke, they're gonna need a whole lot more of the red stuff. God help you if you question violence and hockey and suggest they showcase the good part of the game - skating, stickhandling, and scoring. He's even got the whole country of Canada behind him - ask any Canadian hockey pundit about fighting and they'll tell you it's part of the game. I don't know what counts as sport up there, but in the rest of the sporting world, people don't put up with that bullshit in their leagues. Sure, you've got UFC and WWE, which are in good company with the NHL as it nudges its way toward the lunatic fringe.
Right off the bat, you can discount those sponsor letters to the League - those were all Montreal companies who have been conspicuous by their silence until now, when their favorite team got victimized, so their arguments about violence in hockey are inadmissible. You gotta admit though, the little Commish has some set of stones on him telling them to shove it. Hey, he makes a cool 7 mil, so in my books that counts as 'fuck you money,' so he has the cheddar to shoot back like that.
The problem here was summed up well by Ken Dryden in an article that appeared in the Globe and Mail, basically saying that peoples' justification of violence in hockey is "stupid." It is. Painfully stupid. That Todd Bertuzzi collects millions today after almost killing a guy is stupid. That headshots are subjected on anything less than zero tolerance is stupid. Don't even get me started on fighting. The talking goons will tell you that fighting is necessary because it prevents guys from using their stick on each other. That's as stupid as changing the law to let guys walk up and feel a girl's tits because it will prevent them from becoming all-out rapists.
The thing that's most concerning here is that stupid is not necessarily ineffective. Stupid can come out on top. Stupid can win people over, and stupid can keep coming back to life even when it gets so stupid it seems to self-destruct.
Stupid gets peoples' attention - Charlie Sheen, Mohammar Ghadaffi, Sarah Palin, Lindsay Lohan, that stupid cat on YouTube! Maybe stupid is the strategy! Of course, how could I have been so stupid!
General Ganz
Fighting in the NHL is great! Intimidation and brute strength plays as much a role as skill and grace.
ReplyDeleteThere is a kind of street justice (or perhaps "ice justice" would be more appropriate here) in hockey that no other sport has. There is a reason why there is no dancing on the ice, or trash talking to the media. It is because of the toleration of fighting.
ReplyDeleteI certainly do not want to the NHL to regress back to the days of "Hanson Brothers" type goonery; however the ability for two players who have a problem with each other to be able to take a minute from the game and just duke it out really is one of the reasons why hockey is so special, and in all honesty, why I have grown to love it.
Completely eliminating fighting from hockey all together is totally unnecessary and won’t solve anything and will only push away the need for support for truley needed rules like a "zero tolerance for head shots" policy.
These players are big boys and they know what they are getting themselves into.
The problem with fighting is it's antisocial. Fighting is fine, if it's the sport itself - boxing, MMA, whatever. The issue with fighting in hockey is that it's treated as an outlet to resolve disputes. When you don't like something, you're permitted to lose your shit and fight it out. That's not how things work - in life, in sports, in general. It's only how things work in pro hockey, which is increasingly disconnecting itself from reality and the society within which it operates. Tell me, what the Hell am I supposed to tell a kid about controlling himself and resolving disputes "using his words", when his so-called heroes are out there chucking the knuckles anytime shit doesn't go their way? All this "part of the game" nonsense is bullshit. It's there to validate the self-image of those dinosaurs who grew up within it. Are you telling me Bettman jerseyed the judge in court whenever he ruled against him? Come on, dude - give your own head a shake.
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