In the last 10 years
the number of concussions have increased significantly. The NHL has seen some
of its biggest stars sidelined due to it. Another increasing trend in the NHL
is fighting. In just this season alone there has been a 20 percent increase.
There are people in the hockey world who want attribute these two facts to one
another. However, those people would be wrong.
When delving
further into situation at hand one must take into account what is happening in
the league itself. In the old days, concussions were simply “getting your bell
rung.” A player would shake it off and return to the game no more than five
shifts later. Todays NHL however doesn’t have the same old school mantra.
Players must sit out 15 minutes players must pass a concussion test before
returning to the game.
This ability to
better diagnose concussions is the reason for the increase in league
concussions, and that is a good thing for the NHL. What wouldn’t be a good
thing is associating this fact with fighting and removing it from the game.
A study by Dr. David
Milzman and his colleagues viewed 710 NHL fights; out of those there were only
17 injuries. That equals players getting hurt in less than two percent of
fights. A different study showed that
players most susceptible are centermen, not wingers, defenseman or enforcers.
Yet
people who clamor for the banning of fighting in hockey want it believed that
those enforcers are most at risk. To feed their rhetoric they used the
unfortunate deaths of Rick Rypien, Wade Belak, and Derek Boogaard as fuel for
their fire. Time proved that the three were coincidental tragedies , and in no way related to the job they held while playing professional hockey.
It is
that job in hockey that keeps not only the number of concussions down, but also
the number of total injuries down as well. Yet in the 1993 season enforcers
found it incredibly hard for them to do their job. The NHL issued the
instigator rule.
This
rule led to the rise of the rats. Players Like Matt Cooke, Raffi Torres, and
Patrick Kaleta, have injured numerous players and one ended Marc Savard’s
career. How they play is on the edge of the rules, fighting makes these players
accountable. However, with the instigator rule these players don’t have to
fight, and can flourish in their roles.
The fact
that those players are allowed to play at the top of their game with little
consequences feeds the NHL’s injury epidemic. Suspensions can only last for so
long, especially when the NHLPA fights for the players right to fair
suspensions.
It’s not
just instigator rule that adds to the rise of players getting injured, it’s the
game itself. Players are now bigger and faster, and the rules in place are
designed from them to be even faster.
No
redline, no hooking and holding, the game is sped up to a pace that was never
seen before. Players are getting hurt just cutting across the ice, and not even
on hits just plain incidental contact.
These
rules were put in place to make the game more exciting, yet they made the game
more dangerous. Fundamentally changing the game, and taking out fighting will
have the same effect.
Hockey
is a dangerous game, played by grown men at close quarters with extreme
physicality. This physicality leads to big hits, high emotions, and cheap shots.
All players know the risk they take when the lace up their skates. They know a
hit can end a career faster than a fight. Just ask Marc Savard. Fighting keeps
the players honest, and the game clean.
