Brendan Shanahan is smart enough to realize that it’s one thing to muse about fighting’s place with people who call him “Shanny,” and quite another to do so with Peter Mansbridge.
And while the body count is likely insufficient for the NHL’s board of governors or the league’s intellectual elites to impose Draconian penalties, make no mistake: Shanahan’s statement on Mansbridge One on One that the NHL could “never deny” that fighting’s place is under the microscope – coupled with the Steve Moore civil case and the sad off-season fate of enforcers Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak – has moved the discussion out of the sports bar and into the living room.
It’s been here once before, of course – the Broad Street Bullies and the McMurtry Report and all that – but this time the stakes are higher and the tone is different.
The focus on head shots has moved a necessary first inch toward its next logical step: If it isn’t okay to target the head with a hit when the helmet is on, it ought not to be okay to target the head with a fist when the helmet is off.
Clips of Shanahan’s statement led The National last Thursday and, predictably, Shanahan told his friends within the game that the statement needed to be put in context, that he couldn’t “stop people from misinterpreting what I said.” Blockheads everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.
He protests too much, don’t you think? Shanahan might be more comfortable in front of the video camera, giving out a dry, written, pseudo-legal interpretation of the latest suspension he’s handed out, but he also seems able to think on his feet. With Moore’s case destined to move scrutiny of fighting out of the boardroom and into the dressing room, spotlighting the role of team officials and players, it would seem that a league smart enough to use video to explain its suspensions would also realize it’s time to get in front on fighting. This is red meat for lawyers and serious journalists, as back-stories surface and the focus shifts beyond concussions to include the use of illegally obtained prescription drugs as a means of allowing the paid thug to fight his way through injury.
If hockey were the national game in the United States, the suits would be paraded in front of some Congressional committee. Here in Canada, however, the federal government seems more interested in playing kissy-face with the NHL, especially now that it’s tossed a spare team our way and might be prepared to toss us another bone. True, the focus on head shots has brought about changes and an awareness of concussions at the minor hockey level. But is it time for the feds to hold the NHL’s feet to the fire about fighting?
Of course it is, knowing what we know and suspecting what we’re going to find out. This time, there are bodies, not just wounded psyches.
The expiration of the NHL’s current collective agreement means the time is ripe to talk about wider issues. Coming out of its last lockout, the league deliberately sped up the game. Now there are those who say the lack of hooking and holding has contributed to the head-shot issue because the game has become too fast. “See,” they say, as if using it as some sort of cautionary tale against moving too far too fast.
That’s such a puckhead thing, isn’t it? It also misses the point. Serious change in culture is not accomplished overnight. Staged fighting can be eradicated in a matter of minutes.
As for honest disagreement between players out of the flow of play? Making teams play short-handed for a full five minutes and automatically ejecting the fighters will put it in its proper context, as a one-off, thereby stopping the NHL from being the only pro sport in which fighting doesn’t result in an automatic disqualification.
It might take litigation and, unfortunately, a few more ruined careers and lives, but there is only one way this ends, and the NHL knows it.
