Hockey Prompt:

Fighting in hockey is a product of an era that didn't understand the impact of head injuries to the extent we know of now. When I was a kid,  Derek Boogaard was one of the hometown favorites on the Minnesota Wild, everybody loved when he would get on the ice and just beat the snot out of opposing players for even daring to touch Gaborik. We didn’t know that this was destroying his body behind the scenes. Boogie loved the game of hockey, and the only way he could play the game he loved was, unfortunately, by fighting other players to protect his teammates. His addiction to pain medications and alcohol, self-medication if you will, was because he didn’t feel like he could talk to his team about how his body was failing him. I think fighting will always be a part of hockey, but the era of the goon is long gone and it should stay gone, and fighting definitely should be a rarer thing than it is.