Should ice hockey find ways to prevent fighting or is it good to let off a little steam?

By Markus Spiske via Unsplash

By Shannon Walker

Should ice hockey find ways to prevent fighting or is it good to let off a little steam? 

The recent braul between the Edinburgh Capitals and Kirkaldy Kestrels has once again sparked the constant debate on if fighting should be allowed in the sport. Officially fighting is not allowed but nothing is really done to prevent it, besides a trip to the sin bin (penalty box). Typically, when a fight breaks out it is a mutual agreement between both players, which we can see by them throwing their gloves off, this means that any fights that are had leave no bad feelings between the players. 

Ice hockey is one of the only professional sports that allows fighting, other than boxing of course, and the sport has always had its brawls on the rink. There have been fights since the sport first started in the 1800s and while there are not as many as there was back then there are still a lot of fights. Whilst fighting is not technically allowed it will not result in immediate suspension from the sport like it would in any other professional sport. 

There are thousands of compilations on places like YouTube of fights between players and although fights causing significant injury are rare nowadays, they did not used to be. In 1904 alone four players were killed because of fights. The sport is inherently dangerous.  

Recently there has been one death that has stood out, one that was not due to a fight but instead during the match. Adam Jhonson a player for Nottingham Panthers was pronounced dead in hospital after his neck had been fatally cut by an ice skate, authorities are still investigating the incident. 

This incident happened during the game so we can imagine how dangerous it could be if a fight got taken too far on the ice. 

A proposed way to prevent fatalities is to only allow fighting in specific circumstances, but like any dangerous sport there is no guarantee that would prevent harm but clearly the players are on thin ice.