Since it’s a hot topic this week, I might as well throw my 2 cents in.

I do like fighting in hockey, but I like what I call “emotional” fighting, meaning that the fight breaks out in the middle of the play. 1 guy checks another a little too hard & they drop the gloves or a bigger guy comes in & they go at it. That’s fine by me.

What I really hate is what I call “fighting for the sake of fighting”. It’s when the 2 “goons” line up before a face off, decide that they’re going to fight & when the puck drops, they drop the gloves & go at it. To me, that seems to serve no purpose at all. In this growing scenario, the fighters are not playing the roll of “enforcer”, which is what their roll should be. More proof of this is when the other team does not have a fighter, so the other team sits theirs.

What happened to the guys that could actually play as well as fight? The 1st name that comes to mind is Probert. He could skate & play at a decent level & he could fight with the best of them.

I know Buffalo the best. Peters seems to be a great guy & he can fight, but he’s useless for the rest of the game. Hell, he’s often called of the ice mid-shift so that someone that can actually play is on the ice. Mair, on the other hand, is a decent player - he can skate, he can pass, he can shoot & he can fight. He’s an enforcer & that’s what every team needs.

Think about it: When was the last time you saw a “fighter” in the lineup during the playoffs? It does happen from time to time, but for the most part, they’re a healthy scratch. No team wins the Stanley Cup because their guys can fight. They win games because they can play hockey. If your fighter can score, that’s all the better. But you’re not gonna see any coach put their fighter in the lineup during the playoffs just so he can play 2 shifts in the 1st period & sit on the bench while other guys double shift for the rest of the game.

It’s a shame that most of the sports coverage in the news in regards to the NHL is when their’s a fight.