BY HANNAH PURKEY

In print | Published December 4, 2008 — Updated December 05, 2008 09:48

March 5, 2004 should be remembered as a historic day in sports. It should be remembered not because of the conference on the historic struggle for women’s equality in sports or because of the launch of a new British Columbia program for children’s sports by the BC Hall of Fame, although both of these events deserve recognition. No, it should instead be remembered simply for the last two minutes of a regular season NHL matchup between the Ottawa Senators and the Philadelphia Flyers.

This regular matchup was anything but ordinary, as it took a wild swing in the third period when the Flyers’ Donald Brashear and the Senators’ Rob Ray dropped their gloves with 1:45 left in the game. This fight quickly turned into a brawl, however, when all the other players on the ice started fighting as well, including a rare fight between the goaltenders. These players were ejected from the game, but once the puck was dropped to start the game again, another fight broke out with all the players on the ice except the goalies. More players were ejected and the game began again.

Typical of Philadelphia, fans in the Wachovia Center started booing when a fight didn’t immediately begin at the next face-off. They didn’t have to wait long, however. After less than 30 seconds of play another fight broke out. More players were ejected and the game began again before yet another fight started and even more players were ejected. After five consecutive brawls, 1:13 remained to play in the game and there were only three players left on the Flyers’ bench and two on the Senators’. The Associated Press reported that it took officials over 90 minutes after the game had ended to sort out the penalties. When they were all counted, the game had broken the NHL record for the most penalty minutes for a single game with a total of 419 minutes for both teams.
I do not consider myself a violent person. I don’t particularly like watching fighting, whether it is occurring in real life or being depicted for entertainment purposes. That being said, I found the end of that game to be two of the most entertaining minutes I have seen in sports. Although an extreme example of hockey fighting, this game exhibits the important role fighting plays in hockey.
Recently, however, I have discovered that my pleasure in watching this and other fights is by no means shared by everyone. While trying to convince a friend to watch a game with me (something I keep trying to do but no one seems to take me up on), she informed me that she refused to watch any hockey games because the first time she attended a game, a fight broke out on the ice and she cannot support a sport where violence like that is condoned. After the initial shock wore off that someone would actually make the conscious choice to never watch what I consider the most entertaining sport played in the US, I discovered that she was not the only person I knew that avoided watching hockey specifically because of the fighting aspect of the sport.

Fighting is a part of hockey, but it is not a big enough part that it should deter people from watching the game at all. Fighting is considered a major penalty, resulting in a player having to sit out for five minutes of the game. Although officials let fights continue once they have started, they often separate players before they start fighting and always stop the fights when they escalate to a point that could be dangerous to either player.

Fights function similarly to tactical fouls in other sports. In soccer, for example, a tactical foul can be used when it is better to take a penalty than to give up a breakaway on goal. In hockey, it is the same thing.

A fight can be used to change the momentum of a game to a team’s advantage, or to defend a teammate on the receiving end of an opponent’s unfair play. Although fighting may seem like a more aggressive action than fouls in other sports, in fact there is a higher chance of getting injured by being checked into the boards or by getting hit by a puck when blocking shots. The fact that players have to fight while keeping themselves balanced on their skates and while wearing many layers of padding makes fighting in a hockey match much less dangerous than fighting in a boxing match. Not to mention that whereas boxing is all about fighting, in hockey fighting is just a small piece of the sport.

Contrary to what the 2004 Senators-Flyers game might suggest, teams can go for several games without ever participating in a fight. In last year’s playoffs, the San Jose Sharks in their series against both Vancouver and Dallas never once had a fight, and playoff hockey is supposedly the most aggressive and competitive of the season. Hockey is too great of a sport to be written off solely on one component of the game.

I urge anyone who might have dismissed hockey in the past as too violent to be a quality sport to take a second look. I think you’ll be surprised to find that along with its somewhat aggressive aspects, hockey is truly an entertaining sport of skill and finesse.
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