Politics, religion and fighting in hockey; three things you don’t mention at a dinner party in Canada.
The latter has been kicked around at length this week as the NHL searches for a way to refine the manner in which on-ice pugilism occurs.
The two issues up for debate right now are the reduction of staged fights and the instigator rule.
The first has gained significant support among the game’s main constituents; most fans are okay with the idea of tacking on a 10-minute misconduct to fights that are quite obviously orchestrated.
The NHL claims that over 21 per cent of this year’s bouts have taken place right after the puck is dropped for a faceoff, and these are the types of scraps that the league wants reduced.
The prospect of losing a goon for a quarter of a contest for engaging in a pre-meditated fight may even deter the inclusion of such one-dimensional players on most rosters.
Hockey’s enforcers aren’t exactly thrilled with the idea, but they appear to be in the minority.
As for the employment of the instigator rule, the NHL needs to be extremely careful with its approach.
The idea behind a more-stringent application of the edict is to decrease those instances when a fight occurs because a player is forced to engage in fisticuffs after delivering a legal hit on a highly-skilled opponent.
In principle, the movement has merit. For whatever reason, scorers have basically become off-limits when it comes to physical contact, and hockey aficionados would like the game to revert back to the days when every player on the ice was a candidate for legal body checks.
True, the player that challenges an opponent who delivers a legal hit should be punished, but this will only work if the NHL’s disciplinarian is harder on those players that recklessly attack a vulnerable opponent.
The longstanding and legitimate argument against the instigator rule is that hitters are not made accountable when their blows are both illegal and malicious in nature.
If this directive is going to be effective, Colin Campbell and the league office have to come down harder on those players that continually jeopardize the livelihoods of their opponents, especially when the targets are stars.
The instigator rule is only a useful deterrent if a harsher one exists for those that commit the truly heinous transgressions because if players aren’t satisfied with off-ice justice, they will continue to settle the score with retaliation.
