The NHL and Mutually Assured Destruction

An essay for a scholarship that I wrote in two hours under examination conditions:

Q: Even though the NHL is trying to curb fighting, sportscasters have criticized the Pittsburg Penguins for not having an on-ice body guard for Sidney Crosby. As hockey organizations at different levels attempt to reduce incidents of violence, is this an unsportsmanlike and contradictory criticism?

Fighting has been an integral aspect of the NHL game since the first puck was dropped. Recently, however, as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman tries to expand the NHL game to new markets in the United States, fighting and rough play have come under fire as a negative aspect of the game, one to be eliminated. Hockey gets few highlights shown on American television, as it isn’t a headline game, and the few highlights that are shown are usually the most spectacular of the prior night’s games. These highlights likely include fighting, as it is a thrilling exhibition, and the ESPN audience is supposedly reduced to viewing hockey as a brutal game of fisticuffs. In the hopes of drawing a new crowd, one that watches hockey for the sake of its great speed and skill, fighting has been frowned upon by the NHL head-office, as a matter of increasing positive public relations for the game. This leads to the Pittsburgh Penguins, the home of new superstar Sidney Crosby, widely seen as the best hockey player since the magnificent Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky had enforcers such as Dave Semenko, hockey players whose sole role was to make sure that nobody injured the team’s star player. They’d do this by intimidation, by being such feared fighters that no opponent would dare to touch Gretzky. Things have changed since Gretzky’s 1980s, however, as the instigator rule came about in the hopes of discouraging fighting. This rule gives out a minor penalty to the instigator of a fight, meaning that if you start a fight, you put your team down shorthanded for two minutes, making it disadvantageous to the team to fight or have enforcers. Its relevance to Sidney Crosby is that Crosby is in the same position as Gretzky was; teams go after him and try to hurt him as the best way to stop him, as he’s just too good of a player to be stopped otherwise. This then leads to the main point of having an enforcer for Sidney Crosby. In the age of cracking down and discouraging fighting, announcers are still commenting that Crosby needs an enforcer, a fighter to intimidate others and make sure Crosby stays unharmed, so that he can wreak havoc on other teams. These comments could be then seen as unsportsmanlike or contradictory to the main message that the NHL is trying to send: Don’t Fight. However, the lack of an on-ice body guard for Sidney Crosby, though perhaps a contradictory criticism, is also a very accurate and necessary criticism, because of the lack of accountability in the modern NHL, the idea of star-players as valuable financial investments to be protected, and the erroneous logic of the NHL towards discouraging fighting.

The most basic and common repercussion of the instigator penalty has been that the number of fights are lowering. However, a very negative consequence has arisen in that there is a complete lack of accountability in the game. Players know that they can take harmful cheap-shots at star players and not be beaten to a pulp by a Dave Semenko, because the enforcers don’t want to put their team down shorthanded. This is how the NHL wants it, as they’d prefer that punishment for harmful activity comes from the NHL front office and its disciplinary committee, headed by Colin Campbell, rather than at the end of a fist. A position such as this is seen as more professional and civil, as the NHL tries to market itself as a skills game and not one of brutality. Unfortunately, the disciplinary actions of the NHL have failed at being meaningful and harsh punishments, and are seen by players, fans, and officials as quite the joke. This means that there is no real deterrence to players going after the stars of the game; they can’t be physically beaten, as it used to be, and they won’t get an effective punishment from the NHL. The ineffectual actions of the NHL mean that, hypothetically, a player could go after Sidney Crosby, injure him for a couple weeks with a cheap-shot, and then only be suspended for a few games. With Crosby as an utterly integral part of their team, the Penguins will then go on to struggle for a few weeks, harming their chances at the playoffs, while the opposing team will miss some cheap goon for only a few games. This is why commentators are concerned about the lack of an enforcer for Sidney Crosby, as the NHL’s discipline has proved again and again that is simply not an effective deterrent. With an enforcer, the Penguins could have that intimidation factor that would keep opposing goons from injuring their star. Though these comments about needing an enforcer are perhaps contradictory to the message the NHL is trying to send, the League has dug its own hole in this matter by legislating out on-ice accountability in the form of a flurry of fists. This means that the NHL has to ask themselves, do they want to have their marketable star players injured because of the lack of accountability, or do they want to lower the brutality of the game in the hopes of attracting a market portion? In this case, the brutality of the game is absolutely necessary to keep its goons honest and accountable, and its star players such as Sidney Crosby healthy. The bottom line is that the NHL can’t market itself as a skills game if its skilled players are constantly being bullied and injured by its thuggish cheap players. If the NHL continues pressing the matter of discouraging fighting, this issue will only exacerbate itself in a cycle of unfortunate violence towards its stars, and not towards its goons. Thus, the criticism of the commentators towards Crosby’s lack of an enforcer is absolutely necessary as it sends a message to the NHL about their failed disciplinary methods.

Another reality of the modern NHL is that the players are million-dollar business investments. Though perhaps a callous view, placing dollar figures on the lives of individual human beings, it is also an actuality. How much business sense does it make for a business, the Pittsburg Penguins, to open itself up to the opportunity for its main investment, Sidney Crosby, to be damaged? Though not being paid millions of dollars now, because of rookie contract stipulations, it is sure that Crosby will be paid tens of millions over a number of years, very soon. His value is even bigger than that, as Crosby’s presence and amazing talents draw thousands of fans to watch him, bringing in more revenue for both the NHL and the Penguins in the form of selling tickets and merchandise. He has even greater value as a key advertising figure, as a ‘big-name’ player, Crosby can bring more attention to the NHL through public promotions. With all this value, Crosby still has no protection and badly needs an enforcer, despite the NHL’s campaign of pacifism. The NHL again has to ask itself, which is a more valuable marketable asset, an amazing talent, or a lack of fisticuffs? Both the Penguins and the NHL would be devastated if, hypothetically, Crosby took a cheap-shot from a goon player and his career was derailed or ended, such as what happened to Eric Lindros. Lindros was a future superstar of the League, but a long trail of hits that resulted in concussions ruined his talents. This is why the Penguins need a physical intimidator, an assurance of on-ice mutually assured destruction, and why the NHL needs to back-down from its pacifist stance. Again, the commentators who are asking about the lack of an enforcer for Crosby aren’t unsportsmanlike in the least; they are displaying an important message, both to the League, and to its fans. It is indeed sportsmanlike, not unsportsmanlike, to support the protection of the NHL’s star players. Keeping them healthy and thus driving the game forward on their skillful backs is a far more positive viewpoint than campaigning against meaningful and needed violence in the game. Sidney Crosby is far too valuable a monetary and public asset for the risk of his injury to come about, and with the current stance of the NHL and its instigator rule, the failure of NHL discipline to act as a deterrent, and the lack of an enforcer and the accountability that one brings, Crosby is in grave danger of being put at risk by an opposing team. His injury would be a much larger crisis, by far, to the NHL than a few highlights of fighting shown on EPSN.

This issue of supposedly contradictory criticism leads to an even bigger one, of whether or not the NHL’s stance on fighting is a logical one. It is, after all, because of this stance that the issue of Crosby’s safety is a significant question. The NHL’s stance on fighting, discouraging it and emphasizing the skill of the game, is decidedly flawed and based on fallacious logic. This stance is that, to market itself to a larger and supposedly more pacifist audience, the NHL needs to discourage fighting. The League wants to stop hockey being typecast as a fighting game instead of as a skill one. However, how can the NHL place an emphasis on the skill of its players if the best ones are constantly being injured by unaccountable goons? Hockey skills and fighting work side by side, in a symbiotic relationship that has created the greatest game on ice. These facts seem apparent to the base Canadian market of the NHL; however, the League seems bent on sticking its head in the sand and changing these facts for the sake of supposed marketability. However, the logic behind this marketability of a more pacifist NHL in the United States leaves something to be desired. If Americans were so turned off by violence, then the brutally violent game of football, and the even more graphically violent performance of professional wrestling, wouldn’t be popular in the United States. However, both of these activities are so massively popular that their fans reach the point of near religious fanaticism. As well, a hockey fight has the ability to thrill and to excite fans. In any hockey arena, in Canada or the United States, every single fan in the arena will be on their feet to watch a fight, and most of them will be wildly cheering. The fact that Americans enjoy violent sports, and the thrill of hockey fights, seems to contradict the basic logic of the NHL. The League also seems scared of negative publicity in the United States, however, which is worse publicity, a clip of a fight, or the incessantly replayed image of Todd Bertuzzi smashing a player into the ice with a cheap-shot? That cheap-shot from Bertuzzi was directly caused by the players’ lack of ability to take their frustrations out on the ice in the form of fighting. Instead, the tensions and anger between the players simmered, and then exploded in inglorious shame for the NHL with Bertuzzi’s punch. The basic issue isn’t that the comments about Crosby’s lack of protection are contradictory to the NHL’s message, but that they’re contradicting entirely fallacious logic. Seemingly willing to increase the risk of their biggest asset’s ruin for the sake of erroneous reasoning, the NHL is lacking in basic sense and judgment, and that is where this valuable commentary about Crosby comes in. It isn’t a matter of unsportsmanlike criticism; it’s a matter of criticizing the NHL’s lack of accountability and protection for its best players.

The act of on-ice fighting has always served an integral purpose in the NHL. Though fighting is perhaps a brutal display upon first glance, it also thrills crowds and allows valuable star players to be protected. Mutually assured destruction in the form of intimidation and fighting served the NHL well for the vast majority of its history, keeping such superstars as Wayne Gretzky safe and productive. With the advent of Sidney Crosby’s reign of dominance in the League, the NHL has created a conflict through its campaign to discourage fighting, and its methods such as the instigator penalty. With Crosby being a multi-million dollar asset, in terms of marketing, merchandising, and attracting viewers, his safety should be an integral goal of the NHL. Unfortunately, the League’s head office seems bent on chasing an imaginary boogieman, hunting down the fighters that would protect Crosby, all in the name of supposedly attracting American viewers. This becomes a problem when their logic is examined and proved entirely fallacious. The ‘unsportsmanlike and contradictory’ criticism of commentators towards Crosby’s lack of protection brings up a much greater issue in the game of hockey, an issue of faulty logic by the NHL, and of how the fighting tradition of the League has served its star players very well in the past. Though the logic behind on-ice fighting’s constructive purpose might seem brutal to some, it does serve to protect star players. When the NHL impedes this process, star players begin to get injured and lose their effectiveness. The League’s intent in replacing the on-ice discipline of the fist with off-ice disciplinary measures has miserably failed, and goons now chase after the marketable assets of the NHL with abandon. While discouraging fighting in the name of chasing an imaginary market, the NHL has created a crisis, where the costs of key injuries far outweigh the supposed benefits of curbing fighting.