For what its worth, I wanted to add a thought or two to the on-going debate about fighting in hockey....from my own unique perspective.
When I was interviewed by Commissioner Bettman before joining the NHL in 1996, the one question....only question, actually, was related to fighting-in-hockey (FIH). He wasn't trying to gain the benefit of my perspective, he was trying to determine which side of the debate I fell into. No, not YEAH or NAY, but rather LOGIC & SPIN vs SPITTING RAGE.
His question was simple: "Fighting in hockey - what's your thoughts?". Simple enough - but I knew that there were shallow landmines waiting for me if I were to charge strongly into a lather over the issue. Cool, calm and collected - with a pro-Bettman's -approach bias required. My answer was simple....and probably did more to get me hired than anything else in the process:
"Fighting happens in professional sports when tempers get the better of physically energized and emotionally-charged athletes. Natural, human instincts of defense and protection come to the fore - and athletes respond.
There is fighting in every professional sport. It may be of the push-and-shove variety or the cheapshot variety, but there is fighting in every professional sport. It is a human response to stimulus - and its perfectly natural.
As it pertains to fighting in hockey and in the NHL, the first thing to understand is that its a natural human reaction. Second, it happens in every professional sport. Third, some sports 'celebrate' the culture of fighting more than others....or embed fighting into its lore: imagine the bench-clearing brawls throughout the history of baseball or the long-armed boxing matches in the NBA's video room. Hockey and the NHL are like that too.
The only difference between the NHL and the other North American professional sports leagues? The crime is the same; the punishment is different. Fight in the NFL, MLB or NBA - and you're thrown out of the game. Fight in the NHL, and you're back on the ice five minutes later with one more score to settle. In the other sports, you're penalized. In the NHL, you're rewarded. The optics are terrible, and we take a beating on the optics in the media. Change the punishment rule - and you change hockey, for the better in my opinion."
I'd be thinking about that issue for a year or so, especially when working on the NHLPA's Be A Player magazine for young readers. I know why I was attracted to hockey....and the physicality and occasional fist-a-cuffs were part of the attraction. But I also know that young readers deal with bullying and other violence-related issues and I needed to tread carefully in trying to put fighting in some larger context (and, honestly, minimizing 'fighting' to more family-friendly terms as 'tussle', 'scrap', 'boys being boys', etc.).
So when I met the commissioner, I was well-prepared with well thought out positions on the subject - and influenced strongly by reader responses to Be A Player. I was connected to his youngest fan base - and I knew their language better than most.....plus I was one of the then-few Canadians who had begun to re-evaluate their previous unconditional defense of FIH.
I got the job, became the NHL's publishing director in 1996, 'drafted' a team of strong hockey publishers, launched a bunch of books including Total Hockey encyclopedia, my magnum opus/contribution to the game, and just as quickly left the league exhausted at defending its inherently biased, all-American growth strategy.
And fighting kept its place in the game.....although the position of 'fighter' had evolved to the point whereby specialization was starting to take place; guys hired simply because they were fighters, good fighters, trained fighters, professional fighters.
The job of 'professional hockey fighter' or the euphemistic 'enforcer' has become as buttoned-down as a job description. Protect your teammates at all costs. Inflict fear into your opposition. When called upon, decisively thrash your opponent, breaking bones and opening gashes....the 'crimson mask'.
The professional hockey fighter has become a specialist like the DH in baseball. The role is simple. You don't need to provide any other benefit except the ability and willingness to go out there and punch some guy in the face, repeatedly and with malice aforethought.
Interestingly, a high degree of specialization in sports has shown a distributing societal trend to lead to 'genetically-modified' athletes. We also know, from interviews conducted recently in light of the slew of enforcer deaths suffered by the NHL community, that many of these enforcers go to bed at night (and can't sleep), fearful for their physical and career survival every time they skate onto the ice to perform their duties. Big guys, little guys....just about every guy that plays the role of enforcer must first stare-down their fear if they're to stare down (and then best) their opponent. Added courage comes with many different bottles, some more lethal than others.
***
"If you eliminate fighting in hockey, what happens to all the tough guys? Aren't you denying those guys an income, a way to support their families?"
If the NHL was the UFC, you bite your tongue and hope for the best. If you're the NHL - coming off a summer in which three active (or just retired) enforcers died through to drug/alcohol overdose and/or depression-related suicides - you need to act. If there is one enforcer for every NHL team, then the NHL has just lost 10% of its enforcers over the course of one summer.
Life is a strange path. Hockey gave Wade Belak a chance to leave Saskatchewan. Fighting gave Wade Belak a chance to move forward in the game, eventually persevering until he reached the NHL. Fighting gave Wade Belak the opportunity to meet his beautiful wife and have two beautiful young daughters. Fighting scared the shit out of guys like Wade Belak. His tertiary role with the team hanging by a thread each and every game: one punch might be the last. He would stay up late at night, or have a couple of extra beers to calm him down and allow him to sleep.
Fighting played a prominent role in his battle with depression, a disease innately connected to your sense of self and your place in your world. A fighter has a tenuous hold at the best of time; a fighter compensating with alcohol or pills to calm the savage beast inside, the beast that the fans demand you become even though it isn't your true nature. The persona takes over - and becomes a spiral of fear, guilt, anger, frustration, depression....and more recently, death.
I can't help but thinking that Wade Belak might have been much better off without fighting in hockey. No, he probably never would have made it out of junior hockey.....and that's okay. He might not married his current wife or had his current kids....but I'm guessing that he would have met a wife and had wonderful kids regardless of hockey.
The one thing we do know is that Wade Belak, along with Rick Rypien and Derek Boogard, were all specialized, professional fighters. We know that all of them had some deep underlying mental trauma in some part related to their role within the team and their personal life-or-death role as a fighter. We also know that Wade Belak and his tragic line-mates are dead. And there is nothing that can be done to change that fact.
Fighting in hockey needs to be investigated as a material witness and possible prime suspect in the death of Wade Belak. The causality. The culture. The costs. There might have been a time when a good hockey fight was just the ticket to enliven a game and energize the team and its fan. Now, every time I watch players drop the gloves, I'll be thinking of Wade Belak's two young daughters....and what I could say to them to alleviate their current and future grief.
I'll say "prior to your father's death, we hockey fans were unprepared and unwilling to even discuss the impact of fighting (and specialized fighters). Because of your father's tragic passing, a sport came of age and began to have an adult conversation on a life-or-death matter....and, going forward, the likelihood of your father's tragedy repeating itself becomes less and less. I hope that helps."
Its not much, but its the least we can do for Andie and Alex Belak.
