CKNW Editorial
for October 12, 1999

We are a violent, lawless society. It hasn’t always been so, but it is today. When I was a kid, no one thought about locking their car or even their house. It was common for kids to hitch hike and there were few, if any, problems. A man found in possession of housebreaking tools was a headline story.

Some of the apparent violence today was there but hidden in days gone by. Older people must admit to that. Home violence was considered by the police to be just a bit of domestic trouble scarcely worth more than a quick visit to get the old man, who was usually drunk (and that operated as an excuse) out of the house. But things are more dangerous today – all around the world.

This is, no doubt, because humans, especially but not exclusively the male of the species, are competitive and will fight for rights, real or imagined, at the drop of a hat.

Moreover, as a species, we love violence. Nothing draws better than a bloodthirsty plot on TV or in the movies. The only thing we like better than violence is to preach against it. We are massive and chronic hypocrites.

You don’t think so?

Why then do we tolerate out and out violence in our national game - Hockey? The Mondano incident of a few days ago gets us thinking a bit but the miscreant gets a 10 day suspension for what is perhaps a career ending injury and we quickly forget about it.

A Hall of Famer now a General Manager, the illustrious Ken Dryden, calls for an end to fighting and you would have thought he’d called for the end of spitting water on the ice. I haven’t heard Don Cherry’s reaction but one doesn’t have to hear it to know what it will be. We venerate players like Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux yet love it when high paid goons bash each other around.

Why should there be fights in hockey? Because it’s a contact sport? So is football and so, as we are now seeing so much of, is Rugby. Why is it that football, rugby, soccer, baseball and basketball all have rules against fighting that are strictly enforced and in hockey, for the most part, it doesn’t even carry a real penalty since both combatants go off for five minutes. Even with a big brawl, at penalty time, surprise, surprise, the penalties all seem to even out.

Europeans have been playing fight free hockey for years and it’s great to watch. Hell, oldtimers play bodycheck free hockey and it’s great to watch.

I’m not suggesting the body check be eliminated. Not at all. What I am suggesting is that the NHL ought to take violence seriously.

What hockey needs right now is a huge lawsuit for damages by a guy like Mondano. Now I realize that there’s a maxim in law which says that if you voluntarily assume a risk you can’t be heard to complain. But someday soon a Mondano is going to sue saying "look, I assumed risks of injury but not risks of deliberate injury. This is deliberate injury here and all the guy gets is a ten game holiday. The League doesn’t take its own rules seriously yet I’m entitled to assume that they will. I want compensation – lots of it!"

There’s going to be a big, no a huge, award from an American jury one of these days soon and then the NHL governors will take notice.

Violence, according to bottom feeders like Don Cherry, is both fun and funny. You have to have a couple of goons on your team otherwise the chicken hearted but talented smaller players won’t be able to perform. What on earth kind of message is this to send to young people we’re trying to teach to be non violent?

What is so difficult to swallow is the hypocrisy. A society which to a person condemns violence just can’t get enough of it when it comes to playing hockey. As we sow, so shall we reap.