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Following the on-ice fighting between Alaska and Arizona State, The Rink Live college conference beat reporters share their thoughts on fighting in the college ranks.
I’m against adding fighting to college hockey. The NCAA has done a good job of trying to make the game safer with stricter enforcement of penalties for hits to the head and hits from behind in recent years. I understand that the college level is between two levels that allow fighting: junior hockey and pro hockey. But I’d rather have players worry more about scoring goals than settling scores with opposing players.
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I think if you allow fighting, you’d also find that teams would start recruiting more goons into college hockey. I prefer scholarships going out to players who can play all facets of the game rather than bring just one element to a team.
The idea that players police themselves with fighting is a bit ludicrous to me. Watch an NHL game and tell me that you see less head contact or fewer dangerous hits than what you see in college hockey. I don’t. I see more head contact and more dangerous hits than what you see in college hockey.
The idea of adding fighting to appeal to more fans is not a good argument to me. So you want to get more fans, but at the possible cost of losing players due to more concussions and injuries? Let’s try to take better care of the players rather than putting them more at risk.
The nasty on-ice clash at the Carlson Center last weekend prompted one keyboard warrior to advocate that “fighting be allowed in college hockey, like it is in the NHL.” Credit Minnesota Duluth radio voice Bruce Ciskie for offering a quick correction. Fighting is not “allowed” in the NHL anymore than tripping and cross checking are allowed. They are penalties that will land you in the box for a set amount of time.
And in this longtime (read: old) hockey watcher’s opinion, there’s no longer a place with “a play without gloves” at any level of this beautiful game, least of all in college hockey. Arizona State and Alaska taking swift and decisive action against their two combatants sent the right message: clean it up, or clean out your locker.
Still, sadly, there are plenty of levels of hockey where you can thrive when your primary skill is chirping and punching. We all have heard about certain leagues where they romantically refer to a world of “big boy hockey” and where the propensity to “skill it up” can meet with a swift and violent rebuke. Surely those teams will watch “Slap Shot” for the 127th time on the bus ride home and laugh at the cartoon antics (from nearly 50 years ago) of the Hanson brothers.
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Fighting in hockey hit its peak back then, and has been slowly dying out ever since. It has no rightful place in college hockey, and never will again.
I’m not into the idea of normalizing this sort of thing. Maybe that’s considered “lame” or “weak,” but to me, fighting isn’t what should be drawing people into the sport. It takes so much away from the skill and athleticism that’s required to compete at a high level.
What transpired on Friday night between Alaska and Arizona State was not simply a “fight.” It culminated in a line brawl. One team that was frustrated at its own slim chances of making the NCAA Tournament found a worthy opponent in a team that already knew it wasn’t going dancing, so the result was a full-on brawl in which cheap shots were thrown. I commend the schools for handing down suspensions and doing what needed to be done to ensure it’s not something that will be tolerated in the future.
Of course, in the age of social media, there’s a tendency for this to become normalized. Everyone has their own hot take of how this can ignite college hockey and inject excitement into the sport. But let me ask this — where exactly does the sport lack excitement? College hockey is more popular than it’s ever been before. The pool of players is at an all-time high, and players are making the leap to the pro ranks at an unprecedented rate.
If you want the game to be more exciting, then give me something that will last. The Nanooks-Sun Devils brawl only caught the eyes of so many because it was an oddity. The days of fighting just to fight are part of a bygone era of hockey. A bit of a donnybrook here and there is fine by me, but it should be treated that way. And when it’s time to break things up, it’s time to move on and deal with the consequences in the sin bin.
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