Fighting in the Game of Hockey

Fighting is one of those things in hockey that people are torn in between. Should it be allowed in the game or should it be taken out? Well being a hockey player myself, one who actually got in a fight the night before I wrote this article, I am all for fighting and I will tell you why.

In the game of hockey players take out their aggression in three ways. One is by checking their opponent. This is obviously part of the game of hockey. The second way is by fighting. This happens when your aggression reaches a new level or when the other team does something that was just not necessary. For example the Buffalo Sabres had a brawl against the Ottawa senators about a month ago all because someone from Ottawa took a cheap shot on one of the Sabres best players. This player was taken out of the game with a concussion and needed 20 plus stitches. In this situation the fighting was necessary, almost as a way to tell Ottawa that the Sabres were not going to put up with cheap shots to their players. Finally the third way, which everyone hopes it never gets this far but sometimes it does, is use of the stick. Every once in a while you will see a guy use his stick in a vicious way. About two weeks ago Chris Simon hit a New York Ranger in the chin with his stick on purpose because he didn't like how he had just been hit. Simon was suspended for 25 games which he rightfully should have been because there is no room for that stuff.

Now back to fighting, and its purpose. Fighting like I said is a way to take out aggression, or stick up for your players. No one ever really gets hurt with fighting, but there are those rare cases where someone takes a good shot to the mouth or something like that, but that type of stuff can happen just while playing the game. Now some people say that fighting should be taken right out of the game, but those people don't take into account the type of effect such a drastic change like that would have. First of all like I said it is a way to stick up for your players, so if there was no fighting we would see a lot more cheap shots on the talented players because the guy giving the cheap shot would have no fear that there would be a goon looking for him right after his shot. The second thing is we would see a lot more stick work. Guys would get so angry because hockey is just that, a frustrating sport. When players reached a boiling point with no fighting you would no doubt see an increase of sticks to the head, and other places where the stick does not need to be.

For a lot of people who argue for no fighting in hockey they bring up other sports like baseball or football for example that get along fine with no fighting. Well this in fact is not true; these sports don't get along just fine without fighting. Let's start with football. The reason you don't see fights is that you would have to be an idiot to fight. Everyone has a full helmet strapped tightly to their head. Now with that said football can be known for some cheap shots. For example this past season 06/07 a player from the Tennessee Titans proceed to stomp on the head of an opponent cutting his face in multiple spots. Now was something like this necessary. Obviously not, but this was the way this player took out all his built up aggression because he saw no other way.

Now lets move on to baseball. No one can make a case for baseball because when one team doesn't like a pitch or something like that the whole team runs out to the mound to start a fight. Baseball is a game with no "fighting" but look what happens you get a guy angry and he throws a pitch to hit the batter, which can have sever consequences especially if the player is hit in the head, and then before you know it both benches are fighting out at the mound.

Fighting is part of hockey, and should never be taken out of the game. Players decide to fight, and therefore any risk is taken on by them when they make that decision. I hope that with all I have presented you hear you now realize that fighting is necessary. Without fighting a lot worse things would happen. We need to remember here, hockey players are armed with sticks, which can potentially cause a lot more damage then a fist.