5 Second Rule

With the opening of NHL training camp less than a week away, I wanted to talk a little bit about fighting and its place in hockey. Below you will find what the NHL deems to be a good fight, and a bad fight. Meaning, one is spur of the moment, and one is staged. I have a problem with the use of the word staged. It implies fake to me, and there is nothing fake about fighting in hockey. Moving forward I will use the term planned. Anyway, the rational I guess is that a planned fight is a fight for the sake of fighting sake, and a spur of the moment fight, is a fight brought on by emotion, and a reaction to something in the game. It makes no sense to me, as a planned fight is often times a reaction to something in the game, i.e., you’ve just gone down 2-0, and you need something to turn the tide your way. Or, perhaps somebody has taken a liberty with one of your guys, so you send out the tough guys to straighten it out off a draw. Perhaps the two toughest guys on the team find themselves on the ice at the same time during a face off, and want to have a go. The reasons why people fight, and for what cause are endless.

Now, then. The first scrap is between Jared Boll of Columbus, and Marc Stuart of Boston. Stuart took exception to Boll running his defense partner, and takes it upon himself to straighten Jared Boll out. Kudos to Stuart for getting in there against one of the NHL’s up and coming tough guys in Boll.

Fight 2. The planned fight between Milan Lucic and Chris Neil happened two days after the first fight, and is a dandy. Neil was trying to turn the tide his way after his Senators fell behind 2-0 to Boston. It didn’t work, as Boston rolled, but kudos to Neil for trying.

Having watched both fights, what did you notice? Other than the fact that Milan Lucic can take a punch with the best of them? For starters, I noticed in both fights, one of the combatants lost their helmet. I guess in the NHL’s thought process, in a planned fight, the fighters are more apt to lose a helmet either by removing it before they start fighting, or it gets ripped off during the scrap.

The second thing I noticed in both fights, is, THEY ARE FIGHTING! What the hell does it matter if it starts during play, or off a face off? Two people end up hitting each other. It angers me that people controlling the governance of the game may at some point penalize planned fights to the point they are legislated out of the game. If the penalty for fighting after a goal because it’s planned is more severe, would enforcers wait until play has gone on for a second to start fighting as opposed to dropping them as soon as the puck hits the ice? How does that get determined? Is there a 5 second rule? I can see it now 5 Second Rule: Not just for dropped food anymore. Beauty marketing tagline eh?

It’s finally here at any rate. We’ll have a new edition to the Goonblog staff shortly I think you’ll all enjoy, and it’s rumored a Podcast featuring Dave, Hammer, Killer and I will be recorded in December. Stay tuned everyone it’s going to be a great season!