It’s been more than 50 years that hockey was created and fighting has always been part of it but it has changed over the years. Everyone has different opinions on fighting in hockey, some of them encourages that and some others wishes that fighting was never part of this sport due to the tragedies that happened to them and their families. Even though the percentage of hockey athletes suffering from fighting is not really high it still leaves a big impact on the society when something bad happens to one of these players like suicide or dead from a fight.
In the game of hockey, the enforcers role is to protect his teammates from getting injuries. The enforcers job isn’t to be the star of the team, for him scoring a goal isn’t by putting the puck in the other team’s net, is it by fighting and taking down the other team’s player who disrespected one of his teammates. This can refer to a characteristic of masculinity in one of kimmel’s text which is: “aggressiveness”. (Man box, 6) Hockey coaches love aggressive players but the only reason why these players have a chance to stay up and play pro is by being the team’s enforcer and play by “the code” which is if someone take out one of your players you back him up and protect him. Don Cherry says that: “you can’t hit someone when he is down on the ice, “the code” is simply to fight with honour without any cheap shots or sucker punches”.(fifth estate) Some of the players like Nick Kypreos who didn’t know what they were getting themselves into when they got drafted decided to do whatever it takes to be able to pursue their dream. This also refers to masculinity just like said by Kilmartin in Men studies: “a man takes risks and doesn’t back down”. (What a man does, 6) Kypreos says that he didn’t want it to be the guy that gets kicked off the team because he couldn’t do anything else than fighting so he said that he’ll do anything that it takes to be able to have a career in the NHL.
Bob Mckeown from the fifth estate says that: “fighting is a way to keep hockey from being more violent since it’s a sport played with steel sticks” (2010). A good example to that would be the act of Marty Mcsorty during the game that ended his hockey career as an enforcer. It was a fight he lost against Donald Brashear so he tried again and again to fight him but Donald didn’t want to. Marty’s solution was to hit Donald’s head with his steel stick which got him the longest suspension in the hockey history and a criminal record with 18 months of prohibition. This refers to big statement said by Christopher Kimmel which was “willingness to take physical risks and become violent if necessary”. (6) Marty took a big risk that cause his entire career and even more, he had a criminal record at the end of this game. All this caused Donald to have a 3rd degree concussion which mostly will have a big impact in the future. This isn’t the only way these enforcers have tragedies like these. Don Sanderson who played in the Ontario senior league after getting cut at 21 years old by the Toronto York university hated fighting but it was the only way that he would still be playing hockey. After one of his games, Don told his dad that he fought to protect his captain because his captain was more important to the team then he is. December 12, 2008, Don got into a fight that caused his life. During the fight, his helmet came off and he lost balance and slammed his head first on the ice. He was in a coma for 4 months then passed away.
Chronical traumatic encephalopathy which is CTE is a disease cause by the repeated head injuries. CTE isn’t a disease cause by concussions only, it is processed slowly by little head injuries players like Todd Ewen who played 11 seasons in the NHL and have fought over 145 times will mostly developed CTE in their 40’s. CTE could cause difficulty to connect the dots in the brain like in the case of Todd which one day called his wife telling her that he had no clue where he was and needed her to be able to find his way home. Todd’s wife said that he would be a different person every day. As an example he would be angry one day, mad another day, sad the day after that. Todd’s wife said that he would never talk about how he feels or more precisely he would never talk about his concussions. This refers us again to Kilmartin’s men’s studies text where he says that: “men are directed to not show emotions…because emotion is often considered a central and defining characteristic of femininity”.(men’s studies) In other situation like Wade Belak it could go as far as suicide. Toward the end of his career, he told his wife that during one of his trips when he was on top of a building, he thought about how it would feel like to jump down the building and end everything there. After his career ended, Belak decided to start figure skating. Before one of his trips to Toronto, he went to his doctor to get more of his happy pills but the doctor didn’t tell him how many pills he needed to take every day so he read the instructions and took 2 pills daily. This caused Belak a change in his feelings and acts with his family. Belaks wife says that one day while he was brushing his daughter’s hair, he suddenly started hitting her head with the brush. He might have thought that he was in a hockey fight again with another enforcer but when his wife came and took away the brush, he was unconscious of what just happened. During his trip to Toronto he called his wife and told her that he was going crazy. This was the last time his wife spoke to him because he took his life away after that call.
Hockey enforcers decides to take this path because they have no clue what is waiting for them. They’re trying to act tough, be a man and not back down even though they didn’t want to have this kind of career. If we ask any of these retired enforcers suffering CTE if they would’ve still played in the pro league if they knew they were going to suffer from this disease at the end, they would all have one common answer and that would be no. Now every hockey enforcer knows about these tragedies, do you think they will be less fights?
Cited source
“The Code – Episodes – The Fifth Estate.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2009-2010/the-code.
“Hockey Fight: Wives Reveal the Cost of Concussions – Episodes – The Fifth Estate.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2019-2020/hockey-fight-wives-reveal-the-cost-of-concussions.
Kilmartin, Christopher, and Andrew P. Smiler. “Defining Men’s Studies.” The Masculine Self, Cornwall On Hudson, NY, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 1–7.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 