Monday, September 26, 2011

Ice Hockey: Sports vs. Violence


Jody Shelley is a professional hokey player who became famous thanks to fighting in the ice as part of the game. Now he considers what his career would be without fighting and notices that he would not probably be as known as he is. This made him think about the development of the sport of hockey and came to the conclusion that lately there has been a big interest on the fighting part of the sport, even to the point in which there are players that only appear on the ice to fight and who barely score goals.

It is fair to say that fights is a big part of hockey, they have been there from the origins and nobody complained about it, however it is true that these fights are getting more and more out of hand. Teams now sign contracts with “enforcers” that are over 6 foot 5 and weight 230 plus. It is said that because of the ice and the absorption of momentum is harder to get hurt, however there have been cases of brain damage due to these fights that are affecting the reputation of the sport. In my opinion sports are played to have fun, and although being too competitive can get people into fights, they should not be allowed. A game is not a game when it implies violence.

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2 comments:

  1. LuciaRPSeptember 26, 2011 at 12:08 PM

    I completely agree with you Eduardo. Just because of sports are competitive it doesn't mean they can imply violence. The hockey is not a sport where the main goal is beat the opponent to death but score as much points are possible.I think that not only the referees but the players and the teams should struggle hard to make their games a serious competition. And even if we still want to see fights there are other sports...

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  2. rafaSeptember 27, 2011 at 1:53 AM

    It is hard to say but it is becoming normal to see two ice hockey players fighting to death in the middle of the pitch, while everyone watches doing nothing to stop it. But the funniest thing is that referees can not do anything to avoid this fights, if there is a fight between two players, referees must wait to separate them until one of the players falls to the ground. I personally think that these fights are unacceptable and could be avoided with the referee applying sanctions to those players, like it is done in many other sports.

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