So here we are, again, talking about fighting.
This time, it's fighting in junior hockey, thanks to the furor in the aftermath of the Patrick/Jonathan Roy brouhaha in the Quebec League.
I am trying to stifle a yawn.
I am so sick and tired of the debate. Been there, done that. Round and round we go, where it stops, well, we all know.
It is what it is and what it's likely to remain that way…for now, anyway.
Honestly, I am ambivalent about it.
I personally think a lot of fighting is stupid; fighting for the justification of fighting. I also understand why some fights occur and why, at times, it has its place in the game.
But if it were announced tomorrow that fighting in any league, including the NHL or Major Junior hockey, would be punishable by automatic ejection, I wouldn't stop watching it, I wouldn't stop buying a ticket. I wouldn't wring my hands and say, woe is me.
Just as I'm not prepared to get all bent out of shape over the fact there currently is fighting in the pro ranks and Major Junior and it's not likely to be dealt with any time soon.
And let's get one thing straight - You can't actually ban fighting.
You can make it punishable with automatic ejection, the way it is in minor hockey, Jr. A hockey (in some places) and NCAA Division 1 hockey; the three venues where my son has played the game.
But having watched an awful lot of hockey at all three of those levels, rest assured there are still fights even though a fight is punished with automatic ejection. And there are sometimes line brawls and bench-clearing brawls and really ridiculously stupid acts of wanton violence, just like the Roy debacle in Chicoutimi.
As long as they play the game, they will, to varying degrees, fight.
Go to YouTube and check out some of the mayhem the University of North Dakota has had this season. You can't fight in college hockey. Oh, yes, you can. That isn't to say it happens as often as it does in junior hockey but anti-fighting legislation isn't going to necessarily preclude a kid like Jonathan Roy from doing what he did or the Fighting Sioux to live up to their nickname.
My colleague Steve Dryden, an avowed abolitionist, argues that "allowing" fighting leads to excesses, and perhaps that is true.
But I can't help but think of the mayhem I've seen in Jr. A or other levels that have a "fight and you're gone" rule and they still end up with some really outrageous acts of fight-related violence.
I don't believe Jonathan Roy's actions were as much about fighting per se as they were the age-old problem of someone doing something really stupid in a lopsided game. I don't think any of the Quebec Remparts or Chicoutimi Saugueneens were thinking of whether they were getting kicked out or not for fighting in that 7-1 game when all hell broke loose.
When a game is out of hand, all manner of stupidity comes into play.
You can institute your anti-fight legislation tomorrow and if the next day, two teams are playing in an emotionally charged 7-1 game, it's not going to do a damn bit of good.
The issue is not necessarily to attack fighting, but to attack those who do it with impunity or without any context and attack them hard.
I was pleased to see QMJHL president Gilles Courteau suspended Patrick Roy for five games because that took some jam at this time of year, but I thought Patrick's son got off a little easy with a seven-game sentence. Mind you, a back up goalie, you could argue it doesn't make too much of a difference. But between leaving the crease to fight, crossing the centre red line to fight, instigating a fight, being the aggressor in a fight and not letting up when it was clear his dance partner had no interest whatsoever in fighting back, flipping the double bird to the fans and engaging in a second fight, same stoppage, well, if you tally all that up, you could easily come up with 10 or 15 or even 20 games.
If the players who engage in this type of fighting - the stuff that ends up YouTube; the stuff that gets the premier of Quebec piping up - are dealt with severely enough, you can make them go away and this specific problem, to a certain degree, goes away with them.
Beyond that, though, the notion that the NHL or even Major Junior hockey is on the verge of punishing a fight with automatic ejection, well, it's not happening now. Whether it will happen ever is a good question. I am not holding my breath. Hockey culture is deeply engrained. Enter at your own risk.
Anything that does happen on this front is much more likely to be evolutionary than revolutionary. And some geographical areas are perhaps further along than others.
You can't lump all of major junior hockey together. The sensibilities on this subject are likely to be different from region to region. Talk to the folks who run the Western Hockey League and see if they feel the same way as some of the folks in Ontario or Quebec.
OHL commissioner David Branch just this week suspended a Plymouth Whaler pugilist for bullying, after jumping a Kitchener Ranger player and trying to beat on him for no good reason other than the fact the game was almost over and Plymouth was going to lose. So Branch suspended him five games and believe me when I tell you this indiscretion, as bad as it was, paled in comparison to the Jonathan Roy freak-out.
Branch believes fighting in the OHL is receding. Not gone by any stretch, but waning to the point where they average less than a fight per game, which of course is a relative figure in the world of junior hockey.
He doesn't intend to try to legislate fighting out of the game right now but he had his way, it would eventually go that way on its own, to the point where perhaps introducing an anti-fight rule wouldn't be a shock to anyone's system.
"We have taken steps to significantly reduce fighting in junior hockey," Branch said. "It's becoming more unacceptable to fight in our league. We have chosen to continue our initiatives against head check and hitting from behind, but I can see, perhaps in the near future, where (automatic ejection for fighting) is something that could be considered as well. I think that's where the game is headed."
If so, fine, I have no problem with that. But if not, I am not going to lose a moment's sleep and I'm certainly not going to get drawn into this debate.
Been there, done that.
Thanks for coming.