Hockey Violence
"There is definitely more
of a violent culture associated with hockey," says hockey player
Tim Daniels.
"There are definitely fans who will go to games and are willing to
fight at any time and there definitely are players who are goons, hired
by teams to fight - there is no doubt about that. That’s why I think
stuff like fights go on and that’s not really going to stop.”
To be sure, hockey is a contact sport. Checking, or physically blocking opponents by hitting them with the body, is a necessary part of the sport.
It is also a sport where fist fights between the two teams happen during games, and there are even fans who attend games, anxious to see a good fight.
But what happens when the intense
hitting and checking in hockey go wrong?
15-year-old Neal Goss is living proof that there can be permanent consequences
to hockey violence. Goss, a suburban Chicago high school hockey player,
was illegally cross-checked into the boards by an opposing player in December,
1999 and was left paralyzed from the waist down. The 15-year old teen
who checked Goss was charged with aggravated battery.
Travis Roy, a promising freshman at division-1 NCAA school Boston University, was also left paralyzed for life after careening into the boards headfirst during the first eleven seconds of his first college hockey game ever. The incident inspired Travis to write a memoir, entitled Eleven Seconds. The book's being made into a film by the same name.
In professional hockey, Boston
Bruin Marty McSorley was charged in a court of law with assault with a
weapon, for an attack on Vancouver Canucks winger Donald Brashear.
McSorley hit Brashear in the head with his hockey stick during a February, 2000 game because, according to McSorley, he wanted to fight with Brashear. Brashear could be considered lucky-- he suffered a concussion, but was not paralyzed. McSorley is scheduled to stand trial September 25th.
These incidents have caused
the hockey community, legal system officials, and the sports media to
debate whether the sport of hockey is, by nature, too violent.
Chicago Sun-Times sports reporter Rick Telander writes that having rethought
the issue of hockey violence, he wants both perpetrators in the McSorley
and Goss cases punished by the law.
"Hockey is incredibly dangerous even when played fairly," Telander writes. "But hockey players and their apologists insist when it happens in their game, hey, it's just a tough sport and not that big a deal."
"Complain about the established NHL etiquette of fist-fighting -- the hideous squaring off, the refs circling the battling goons until one or both combatants fall to the ice or are noticeably injured -- and hockey guys say, ah, you sissy, you don't understand the game."
What, then, can be done about the violent nature of the sport?
The debate over hockey violence
has caused some antagonists to go as far as to say that hockey, as a sport,
should be banned.
This is a prospect both the NHL and hockey players do not take lightly.
Daniels, defending the sport, says hockey should not be banned because
it requires a great deal of skill. He feels the Costin tragedy wouldn't
have happened if there'd been better security at the rink.