That ol’ gag.

I tried to write this blog but it just got out of control. This is what came out. I have no idea if it’s clear, but it’s 2:20 am…

“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”
—Muhammad Ali

I’m not sure where directing a documentary on boxing places me in terms of glorifying sports violence, but I thought I’d make a comment about fighting in hockey anyway.

This comes after the recent brawl in a junior hockey game, that may not even have reached the rest of the world as news—which is good. Goaltending legend Patrick Roy’s son Jonathan skated across the ice and pounded the opposition goalie. The opposition goalie had ‘turtled’—which means he was unwilling to fight.

Frankly, I commend the choice to not fight, and I think the derogatory use of the term ‘to turtle’ should be replaced with, say, ‘he pulled a Gandhi’ or ‘he did the Martin Luther King.’

It should also be noted that when I played junior hockey, I was no fighter and barely a scorer, which surely accounts for a career of staggering brevity and anonymity. I also disliked showering with a bunch of men, but that has nothing to do with this article.

CODE OF HONOUR

What’s interesting about Patrick’s son’s behaviour—though hardly shocking or even surprising, given hockey—is that it’s not vilified because it was violent, it’s vilified because it was outside the acceptable code for fighting on the ice.

Given that fighting of any nature is allowed in hockey, that’s a bit of a curious comment—but it’s true. But the only fighting that is ‘acceptable’ in hockey—indeed encouraged, celebrated and even honoured—is the fight between two voluntary participants.

No head-butting. No biting. No kicking. And no fighting someone who refuses to fight. Hey, it’s not a free-for-all! This isn’t Iran, you know, it’s smack in the middle of modern civilization!

IN THIS CORNER, WEARING WHITE HOCKEY PANTS WITH A BLACK STRIPE…

The only fighting that’s allowed in hockey is straight ahead bare-knuckle punches to the face, by two willing participants for as long and as hard as they can keeping going without the linesmen having a safe way to break it up. If children are watching, so be it. If they’re cheering (from an economics point of view), all the better.

Suspensions, however, happen to those who commit infractions outside of this code—like Jonathan Roy, in this relatively insignificant outbreak. Whether what happened was excessively dangerous or caused injury is ultimately, but not completely, beside the point.

REAL ENFORCERS

This is instructive, and also disconcerting, because pro hockey players who actually fight for a living, generally within the ‘code’, are incredibly tough, aggressive, powerful and dangerous athletes: they can weigh 240-odd pounds, be adept in martial arts and pumped to the max on steroids—at least during their summer training regime. And the toughest junior players aren’t far behind.

Hell is bound to break loose during the season.

COMING INFRACTIONS

I would not be at all surprised if one day somebody is killed in a hockey game, not by actions outside of the ‘code’ where a loose canon pounds away on a turtling goalie, although something brutal could happen there, but by a clean punch or combination of punches in a fight that is considered acceptable.

Many hockey players more than willing to fight, with a maximum penalty of five minutes for their actions, have had their careers finished from being walloped.

Adam Deadmarsh, for example, was concussed by one punch, and never really fully recovered, putting an end to a promising career. A brutal punch and then falling face-first onto the ice, unconscious, also convinced Nick Kypreos to pack it in.

It’s not pretty, it has nothing to due with the stick or the puck, and it’s after the whistle—but people defend its place in the sport.

UNAVOIDABLE

With regards to what happened in Quebec the other night, my point is simple and two-fold.

One, who cares? It’s only hockey and the importance of sport is ridiculously overblown. I don’t even think anyone was hurt, and we live in a world where sanctioned mass killing goes on day and night.

Not to mention we have endless video war games, a war culture, ultimate fighting as entertainment, films of deep violence without redemption winning Academy Awards, and factory-farm food fed to our children and ourselves nearly 24-7. One can only pray there is a lot of love at home.

LAWS OF NATURE

Two, as long as bare-fisted, unlimited pummeling is an encouraged part of the game of hockey, greater mayhem has to occasionally spill over—including bench-clearing brawls, rude words and even the occasional fashion faux-pas. This is science as much as morality, if not more.

Anyone who can’t accept this truism just doesn’t understand the law of association, the law of thermodynamics, the law of the jungle or the law of being an idiot—heck, just ask any parent. If the zeitgeist created is full of violence, violence will erupt.

To be overly affected by its daily news flashes is to be hopelessly vulnerable. The appalling acts going on all over the globe have very little to do with a scrappy night in a Quebec ice rink. As it says in the Baghavad Gita, “Armed with yoga, stand and fight.”

In other words, understand, in varying degrees, these unfoldings are part of the world. From there, breathe deeply and act according to your nature, as best you can. If love can be increased, or hate decreased, how beautiful is that?

And if one of your goals in life is to have fighting in hockey banned, good luck to you.

LETHAL WEAPON

But the effects of association, of energy, are evident everywhere, and are perhaps even more important to try and understand. Indeed, this is the stuff of life. Take the weapons industry, for example. If trillions of dollars are spent on their production, there is a force behind such ventures—even an energetic force. By design, it seems to me, they will eventually be used.

Is weapons being used the problem, or is weapons being built the problem—or is maximizing profits in any way possible—fighting, drugs, weapons—the problem? And what are the unseen emotional effects of the weapons industry being a major part of, say, the American economy?

It’s the law of association—it’s the allowable parameters within a system. It’s seeing where a question begins, and the question that is allowed to be asked.

Corporations exploit humans and the environment because in this curious world they’re sanctioned and applauded and rewarded for doing so. Discouragement is trivial.

So it goes, in a microcosmic way, for fighting in hockey.

THE SECRET

Being surprised or appalled at what happened in that junior game is like being surprised when Mike Tyson’s nature and profession spilled over into his love life. Tragic? Yes. Surprising? Not so much. Okay, the ear was a bit of a shocker. Okay, the second bite.

Again, way outside the code of allowed violence.

JAILHOUSE ROCK

Take prisons. Is anyone surprised one goes in to those hard, cold, brutal places for a small crime and comes out a hardened criminal? If I had my way, prisons would be (for starters, a lot less full), the meals would be vegetarian, the walls would be a soft colour, and there would be no televisions.

Wait a second, that’s my house.

HUMAN NATURE

Maybe fighting in hockey should be banned, or restrained, or penalized for seven minutes, or maybe it shouldn’t. Either way, is it incomparable to the sickness of sanctioning, endorsing and funding the blowing up of women and children in foreign countries—and obtaining massive wealth for doing so?

What questions aren’t asked in our silly outrage over something like a bench-clearing brawl at a hockey game between boys?

Here’s what I know: if governments and corporations, in some revelatory tandem, stop inflicting their Military Industrial Complexes onto innocent people in other parts of the world, because it’s wrong to do so, I guarantee that fighting in hockey will slowly cease to be.

Indeed, the sport will probably become a sort of figure skating with a stick and a puck. I wouldn’t even be surprised if those one piece sky blue jump suits (with the curious bulge in the middle) cross-over too—maybe even with sequins.

But before we get too honest or too gentle, we should ask ourselves: is that really what we want? Fairly-treated people in light blue jump suits all over the world, eating nutritious salads and unafraid to ‘turtle’? Not ony that, who knows if the Chinese or the Russians will play along.

Maybe I’ve just got to minimize anger and cruelty in my own life—in how I eat, talk, work and play. No, that can’t be the problem!

I love you—garl darn it I love you!

Pete xo