BizNasty on Fighting: “I like to stick up for my teammates.”
By Adam Savard
Paul Bissonnette is one of the more feared fighters in hockey. While he may not like fighting, he’s not going to watch it get removed from the game without another fight.
Paul Bissonnette is still fighting the good fight.
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The 29 year old veteran took on the topic of fighting in the NHL again in this recent article from ESPN. And as in the past Bissonnette largely takes the filter off and tells it like it is. He covers quite a bit of ground in the interview, in particular this gem on player safety:
"If the main issue is player safety — and you’re worried about guys’ brains — there are way more injuries, even head injuries, from hitting than from fighting. So why wouldn’t you take hitting out of the game too? What do you think a neurologist would say about guys who are skating at 30 miles per hour on blades, launching their bodies at each other?"
Makes sense when you think about it like that.
And it’s not as if all fighting is bad. Player safety goes beyond combatants lining up and punching each other about the face and head area. It’s the total package including equipment, both sticks and protective, as well as the integrity of the players themselves. You don’t want to have players just taking runs at goaltenders or liberties in the corners with colleagues in vulnerable positions. And ideally the players themselves could handle it on the spot.
And by on the spot, I don’t mean at the next face-off. The staged fights are nauseating and really don’t service a purpose other than to give the two players fighting some post game beer conversation. They do nothing but slow the game down. If you want to fight and protect a player by dropping the gloves in the heat of the moment, go for it. As much as it drives me insane to watch players fight after a clean hit, I would much rather see that than a staged fight.
It’s a point Bissonnette also makes very well in the same interview:
"Then it’s completely organic. I’m for taking out the fighting that’s just pointless. Are the days of two tough guys lining up and going at it done? Man, I hope they are. I think it’s stupid too. Those are the guys inflicting most of the damage. Those are the guys doing it 20, 30 times a year.Sidney Crosby against Claude Giroux, that’s happening once every two or three years maybe."
I love that fact that Bissonnette argues for fighting as a point of player safety considering the league seems bent on eliminating fighting using the same basic argument. And there are current and former players on each side of it and both make very good points. It’s why this is bound to be a debate that carries on through several seasons.
I side with Bissonnette. You can’t legislate the ability for players to police themselves out of the game. With the way he approaches the topic of player safety it would be nice to see an outspoken and experienced mind like Bissonnette carrying the flag for the Department of Player Safety once he decides his playing days are behind him.