Ban Fighting In Hockey Analysis

The article, Ban Fighting in Hockey discusses the dangers of fighting in the game of hockey. Author Charlie Gillis is arguing the fact that the old saying says, “Hockey needs fighting” should be reconsidered. This journal coming out shortly after the death of rookie senior hockey player, Donald Sanderson, caused the uproar against violence from Gillis. His argument was up against great odds, because when Colin Campbell (who is the director of hockey operations) brought the topic of harsher punishments up, only two General Managers supported the idea.

Gillis feels that fighting within hockey was part of the game right from the beginning. Stories say that the very first indoor hockey game ended in a fisticuff. Now it’s different. Now the players are bigger, stronger, and are paid to protect. He feels that it is wrong that the punishments are so small compared to every other sport. In the NHL, you only get a five minute penalty, whereas say in the MLB or NBA fights are rarely seen due to the game suspensions. This puts the overseers of the NHL responsible for the construction in Gillis’ opinion. They are the ones who have the power to make changes to the rules but wont due nothing about it because they want their jobs to remain secure.
Time and time again, injuries are caused by these senseless acts to “blow off steam” or “fire the team up”, when really they are doing more damage then perceived. Charlie feels that to resolve the problem would not be difficult at all, that as soon as game ejections followed by hefty fines were introduced, it would diminish them to very few and almost “make them ridiculous”. So in sociological terms, the construction is morally wrong and needs to be reconstructed, in the eyes of author Charlie