Raise the Hammer

He doesn't encourage fighting in hockey, he understands that it has always been a part of the game, it is there for a reason (at the professional level), and that the movement to remove it from the game is a political one driven by ignorant leftist sentiment that doesn't get that a fight on the street is different from a fight on the ice. Name me another sport (other than lacrosse, where fighing is allowed) in which every player on the field/ice/pitch is carrying a potential weapon? Fighting in hockey (the way it used to be) protects players from getting hurt. They policed themselves and there was an understanding that if you broke the accepted boundaries, you were going to pay a price. Do you no ever wonder why (until very late in his career after the "instigator" penalty was introduced) Wayne Gretzky never got a concussion, never got sticked in the face, never got cross checked from behind into the boards, was never picking stick tape out of his teeth? It's because if he did you knew Dave Semenko or Marty McSorely were going to pound your face in. And then they were going to pound the face in of the best player on your team.

Simply making RULES that penalize such actions as head shots, stick infractions, hitting from behind hasn't stopped it and in fact have increased injuries to marquis players. The evidence is obvious. Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, Marc Savard, James Reimer, One of the Sedins, Brent Seabrook how many others? Hundreds of man games lost due to head injuries from mostly cheap shots. The penalty? A few games suspension and a fine. Wow. Those players are almost all millionaires. A few thousand dollar fine and five games isn't going to stop it. The certainty that you are going to lose some teeth does.

The fans do not want fighting out of the game, the players do not want fighting out of the game, the general managers do not want fighting out of the game. Those that do are a small but vocal bunch of journalists, bureaucrats, and do gooders who think they know whats best.

Violence in sport is different than a hockey fight. If you are a professional hockey player, you have a reasonable expectation that a fight on the ice could take place and that you could be in it. A fight on a soccer pitch is a different story. For that matter what Todd Bertuzzi did is a different story. Tossing guys out of the game in pro hockey is only going to lead to more star players getting hurt, or worse. If a little blood is too much for your sensibilities maybe you should watch something else.