Fighting Is Still The Rage

Why do they fight?

Who, you ask? The Palestinians and the Israelis? The Islamic Extremists and the Western World?

 

No, combatants much more relevant to everyday American life: hockey goons, of course.

 

It's once again the time to ask why hockey permits, or even encourages, fighting when all other major sports (with the exception of boxing and its ilk) have effectively outlawed fisticuffs. The latest questioning was precipitated by the recent tragic death of a 21 year old minor league player who lost his helmet and cracked his head on the ice during a fight.

 

When I played eons ago at the lowest amateur levels, occasionally even players of my class would lose their cool in the midst of a skirmish and start throwing punches. But that was not premeditated. It was just the result of the fast play and hard hitting. At the NHL level, fights were common but usually not premeditated.

 

Fighting has now become a ritual in which the designated goon for each team squares off against his counterpart. Usually, they have not had any meaningful interaction with each other apart from exchanging words like "let's go". The fight itself often is preceded by each combatant removing his helmet before the fists fly so they don't break their hands on the other guy's hat. Happily for fight advocates, it's still kosher to break your hands on your opponent's skull.

 

Ostensibly, the fighting is a self-policing action by the players to eliminate the borderline to flagrant stunts that the referees have missed or simply ignored. But that seems hard to believe. If the players see what's happening, it's pretty likely the refs see it too. Also, a fight between the goons is hard to connect logically to actions taken by other players.

 

The only reason why fighting still is a part of the game is because some fans like it. Without this fan support, the ritual would be gone in a flash of a league-mandated game penalty and fine. And that's just what the league should do. No one complains about the lack of fighting during the playoffs when the stakes are too high to give up a roster spot or take any penalties. Fans who are excited about the fights should go to a boxing bout. The rest of us can enjoy the skill and passion of the athletes.

 

Hockey is a religion in Canada and the northern part of the U.S (also known as Baja Canada). It has struggled to become relevant in the rest of America (sometimes referred to as Alta Mexico). Catering to the World Wrestling Federation crowd's sensibilities is not the way to success. The best hope for the NHL is to capitalize on the engaging personalities of its stars like Sydney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Joe Thornton, who, by the way, seem like absolute saints when contrasted with the ego-maniacs headlining baseball, football and basketball. This, along with High Definition TV and lower ticket prices, rather than fighting, is what the sport needs.

Is Golf a Sport?

Following up on my post last week: Is Tiger The Best Athlete?, I ran across a great article today by Michael Lewis which questions whether golf is a sport at all.

Just to give you a flavor of his argument, he talks about how Tiger Woods played the US Open on a broken leg. He says, citing those who defend golf as a sport: "A golfer is proving once and for all that our game is a test of deep character and physical courage.

See: Golfers play hurt!

See: You can even get hurt playing golf!!!

Well, you can get hurt playing darts, too. Or hiking. Bowling can be seriously hazardous, if you don't know what you're doing. Play with enough passion and you can even injure yourself in a spirited game of Monopoly. (I once cut my finger grabbing Park Place.)

It's absurd when you get hurt bowling, just as it is absurd when you get hurt playing golf -- or would be if golf assumed its rightful classification among curious outdoor hobbies, on the same mental shelf as scuba diving and tai chi chuan".

If you like, you can read the entire article by clicking here.

Well, this kind of resonates with me. I also wonder about whether synchronized swimming is a sport. How about a whole bunch of other activities that people who don't speak English as a first language play or root for, like bocce ball?

I don't really know what it takes for an activity to be defined as a sport. So, I looked it up. Sports can be defined as "an active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition". Under this definition, I guess that all the activities cited are sports. I'm just not so sure.

Surely, all True Americans would argue that baseball, football and basketball are sports. And all Canadians and at least 20,000 fans in each NHL city in the U.S. would have no problem declaring that hockey is a true sport. But, in the case of basketball and football, those participating in the sport have to be pretty large. In fact, they're not normal humans at all.

I think we should modify the definition of sport to say that it has to be played by normal sized humans to qualify. Professional football and basketball can then be classified as spectacles to be watched for their performance qualities, much like opera or professional wrestling.

I could go on and on with this. I've clearly drifted off of the question that started this entire screed. I just don't know whether golf is a sport in the same way that I think baseball and hockey are sports. If this is the case, I'm further inclined to believe that, in answer to the question I posed last week, Tiger Woods is not the greatest athlete.