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uhh · 08-04-2019, 03:31 PM

(2x draft bonus, deferring first article bonus - I was told this applies to every article I write this week, but if not, disregard)

(I used some player names without permission. Hopefully that's okay.)
(2283 words)

S49 SMJHL Draft Indicates Fighting on the Outs in Pro Hockey
Duthie Dreger, The Athletic

In any other team sport in the world, throwing punches at another player will earn you an ejection and likely a multi-game suspension at the very least. Hockey has always been a unique exception to this rule.

Sure, fighting is technically illegal, in the sense that anyone who gets into a fist fight during play will receive a five-minute major penalty. If they are deemed to have instigated the fight, they'll get an additional two-minute minor penalty as well as a game misconduct and an ejection.

However, the latter escalations in punishment are rare, and by and large, most of the players who drop the gloves in a professional hockey game don't have to worry about missing more than 1/12th of it in penalty time. It seems like a small price to pay for the opportunity to have a punch-in-the-face contest with that goon or pest on the other team.

Fighting has been one of the most divisive aspects of the sport of hockey for many years. Pro leagues that allow fighting, like the SHL and SMJHL, defend it as a necessary part of the game. The definition of necessary is always somewhat nebulous. Vague references are made to "The Code," the unwritten rules that act as an addendum to the official written rulebook and determine what infractions are punishable by repeated punching in the face.

Much of the behavior that would lead to a fight is captured in a catch-all definition of Unsportsmanlike Conduct in the official league rulebooks of the SHL and SMJHL. However, it isn't spelled out in as much detail as The Code, according to players in these leagues. We asked a few of them, anonymously, what sort of actions are under the jurisdiction of The Code.

"Snowing the goalie," says one SMJHL goaltender. "That's when a player on the other team stops right in front of you while you're going down to make a save or cover the puck, spraying you with the snow from their skates.

"It actually sucks. It gets in your eyes and you usually have to take your mask off and wipe your eyes with your jersey. It's inconvenient enough that you're kind of a jerk for doing it on purpose. Some guys do this to rattle a goalie who is hot, and some do it just because, but if you do it, expect at least the defensemen to get in your face."

Another SHL player chimed in with another widely-accepted part of The Code: you don't take runs at veterans.

"Look, hockey is a physical game and hitting is a part of it, but as people who have played for all of our lives, we know when people are out to make a play on the puck versus when they are out there to injure you," the player in the SHL's Eastern Conference said.

"You respect your elders in this league. These are guys who have given their lives to their SHL careers, and in many cases will be first ballot Hall of Famers when they retire. If you're the new fourth-line spark plug and you try to take Flacko Lagerfield's head off to make an impression, you have to expect to be dropping your gloves in a tilt afterwards."

The rules of The Code are not uniform. We asked another player for his opinion on the above, and got laughter in response. "That's a joke," said this player, from the SHL's Western Conference. "If you're on the ice, you know the risks. Hockey is a physical game. Don't like it? Don't play.

"I hate this whole system of retaliation in response to big, clean hits. It shouldn't matter if you're a superstar. If you're that good, don't put yourself in a position to get laid out. Simple as that. I'm talking about clean hits, and not that blindside hit to the head garbage that we all hate."

Regardless of which side of the above debate that you fall on, the undeniable trend is that fighting -- long considered an untouchable and undebatable part of the game of hockey by the sport's purists -- is on the decline in leagues around the world, most notably in the SHL and SMJHL.

The Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft took place this past Thursday, and while teams were snapping up the players they coveted most, the most notable trend was who was still on the board after the last pick was called.

Players like Doug Glatt, Paul Bissonnettte, Ricky Runlope, and Ilmari Lehtinen found themselves undrafted at the end of the night. All of them have played hockey their whole lives. All of them are big, bruising enforcers with a penchant for dropping the gloves.

Even as teams were passing their selections in the later rounds, indicating that they were done with their draft early, the fearsome foursome above stayed on the board. The fact that SMJHL teams are choosing to pick nobody at all rather than take on an enforcer is as clear of a sign as any of the direction in which the league is heading.

As the SMJHL goes, so too does the SHL. The major junior league is the only direct feeder system into the SHL, and nobody who has set foot on SHL ice has done so without skipping the lower league affectionately referred to as the 'J'. If fighting goes extinct in the J, you can expect it to disappear from the professional game entirely in North America.

[Image: Mar2_Gallery.HockeyFightWEB_Gallery.jpg]

[Image: Mar2_Gallery.HockeyFightWEB_Gallery.jpg]

Two players drop the gloves in an SMJHL game earlier this year.

What's causing teams to reject fighters? Why did all eight teams in the SMJHL pass on players like Glatt and Runlope -- with the alternative, in some cases, being nobody?

"We liked Doug Glatt. Our issue was just a roster technicality. We were totally full on both offense and defense. We like him and would be willing to give him a tryout. You never know what could happen in camp.

"We left him a few voice mails, but he hasn't returned our calls. I imagine he's probably on vacation or enjoying the summer. I'm sure we will hear back."

Other executives weren't so kind in their impressions of enforcers and the role they play in the modern game of hockey. One front office executive outright declared them extinct already.

"Player development is our goal, and nothing develops players like winning. That's why we all have jobs," said the anonymous SMJHL GM. "Why should we draft a player who doesn't help us win?

"Fighting doesn't put goals on the board. Taking penalties hurts us instead of helping us. Why should we draft someone who is going to make life harder for the 17 other skaters on the team night in and night out? Penalty killing is nice and all, but it doesn't make for a great pre-draft highlight reel."

We asked around the league if the issue was with fighting itself, or with enforcers -- players whose primary and/or only job is to drop the gloves with other enforcers. The vast consensus is clear: enforcers no longer have a place in today's game.

"The staged fighting and the fighting for fighting's sake is stupid," said one unnamed SMJHL player. "If you want to fight for a living, go do UFC or something.

"You get respect for fighting for the team, not fighting for yourself. Nobody in the room appreciates that."

The player is careful to make the distinction between his displeasure for pure enforcers and his respect and understanding of the place of importance that fighting generally occupies in the sport of hockey.

"Fighting will always be a part of the game, like in those heat of the moment situations where someone really takes a liberty with one of our players or shows some serious disrespect. This is a violent, physical game, and in a lot of ways, fighting is a release valve of sorts." -Anonymous SMJHL Player

"You're more likely to get injured blocking a shot than you are in a hockey fight, since most punches are landing on either helmet or shoulder pad. The people who say ban fighting because it's dangerous don't know what they are talking about. You might as well remove all hitting from hockey by that logic. And slap shots, too."

What about the enforcers themselves? How do players even earn that label in the first place? Hockey is a sport with a lot of youth players and relatively few spots on professional and major junior rosters. The players who have the potential to fill one of those spots in the future realize so from an early age. Most others will play until it stops being fun anymore; usually, this is when the talent gap becomes so wide that they can't keep up.

Some players in the youth leagues will make fighting and physical play their primary focus areas, in the hopes of taking an alternate route to professional hockey. As young as 14 years old, players in youth leagues around North America have dropped the gloves in hockey games. One now-retired player now told us how he was encouraged to play this way as a kid.

"My coach pulled me aside and said, 'Look, you've got size. You have the size for the pro game, if you know how to use it.' It was my job to get in three fights a week, and to win them. My assistant coach kept track for me.

"I'm not totally proud of it. My nose was broken like three or four times. I love hockey though and this was my shot at the Show. If I hadn't gotten injured so much, I probably would have made the J at least. My issue wasn't that I was an enforcer, but that I was a shitty enforcer."

For a long time, a player whose primary job was to fight and intimidate had value to pro clubs, when the prevailing wisdom was that every team should have at least one enforcer. Not many people wanted to fight, but the path to the pros for aspiring enforcers was simply learning to skate and learning to throw and take a punch. This is what enticed players like the one we quoted above to pursue the pugilistic craft.

"Yeah, it's not really that cool to tell people you're a hockey player and then show them your highlight reel of punching people," laughs the former player. "I would have liked to play professionally, but in a way, I'm glad that I didn't make it that way. I'm really not a fighter. I'm just a big guy who took the path of least resistance, or so I thought."

Nowadays, many youth leagues have outright banned fighting, after complaints from parents that their children were using the sanctioned fighting to settle scores that were racked up outside of the games themselves.

"This isn't a big community, and most of the kids play hockey in our league," said Michael Cameron, the Commissioner of the Thunder Bay Midget Hockey League in Thunder Bay, Ontario. "Those that don't are good friends with one of the players.

"We had kids fighting not because of stuff that was happening in the heat of the moment on the ice, but because of something that happened at a party the night before, or at school earlier in the week, or whatever. 'Meet me at the flagpole' became 'see you on the ice' for a lot of players in our community, and it was unacceptable."

"These are fourteen- and fifteen-year old kids," said a TBMHL parent named Karen (who only gave her first name). "They shouldn't be getting into fist fights, and they certainly shouldn't be thinking that because the rules of hockey allow it that it's acceptable."

[Image: russian-youth-hockey-brawl-e1354291495405.jpg]

[Image: russian-youth-hockey-brawl-e1354291495405.jpg]

A brawl in the TBMHL, a midget hockey league in Thunder Bay, Ontario for players aged 14 to 16.

With the overall trend of fighting on the decline in the pro and major junior leagues, as well as the trend of more and more youth and amateur leagues outright banning the practice, it seems inevitable that enforcers in the mold of the olden days of hockey no longer have a place in the highest echelons of the sport.

Fighting will probably always be allowed in the SHL. The unspoken truth at the league head office is that the potential thrill of a spontaneous fight puts casual fans in seats that would otherwise be vacant.

"The saying 'I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out' sums it up," quipped one anonymous employee from SMJHL head office. 'Fighting is exciting when it feels like a natural part of the game. It's cathartic for players and fans. It attracts attention. It creates storylines.

"But ultimately, skill, speed, and scoring is what is best for business. We can't have a player who scores goals and electrifies crowds being kept off of the roster in favor of a player who just beats others up. That model doesn't really exist anymore, and it's hard to imagine it having success in our league." -Anonymous SMJHL Employee

For the Doug Glatts of the hockey world, the writing is on the wall. Many of these players have the size to be successful and are still young enough to develop the other tools needed to adapt their size to the pro game in an effective way.

"We will take a chance on some of these players who show signs of raw talent," said an anonymous SMJHL scout.

"It's much harder than you think to find big people who can skate. The other stuff can be taught."

Flareon · 08-04-2019, 03:39 PM

This is some quality writinh

***luke*** · 08-04-2019, 04:36 PM

This is basically an athletic writing A+ effort and execution. Oh and you can name drop anyone you want. No permission needed

Rublic · 08-04-2019, 04:38 PM

I'm sure if fighting actually had an in sim benefit it would change the way everyone looks at the enforcer archetype. Without definitive proof it just looks like someone taking a five minute penalty

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