Ice Guardians Page #13

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But no one's allowed to retaliate.

And that, to me, was a mistake.

That's where fighting...

being tolerated...

but not encouraged and over-regulated...

it just conflicts with itself.

Staged fighting started to happen.

You wanna put rules in?

Well, you always find ways around rules.

Now you line up and... you

address it on a faceoff

because... you don't wanna

put your team down.

So I think fans and

the outsiders lookin' in

are all of a sudden, all up in arms

that there's all this staged fighting,

and it wasn't part of hockey,

but that was just... players and teams

working around the rules

they implemented.

Finesse player today

is getting hit a lot harder

because the guy hitting him

doesn't have to... answer

to anything that he's doing.

He can skate right by the bench and say,

I can do it all night

and there's nothin'

you can do to stop me

'cause if... you try to stop me,

it's 2-5-10, game,

you're gone and we have

a 7 minute powerplay.

There's gotta be a

huge appreciation for the fact

that we don't know what would happen

if there was no fighting.

And you can't just say

it would, y'know, keep a lot

more people safe.

What this, sort of,

new era of concussion research

affords all of the anti-fighting people

is now they have a context,

now they have a reason

as opposed to just their sensibilities

which is all it ever comes down to.

Is some people find it

distasteful and others don't.

And now the people that

find it distasteful

feel that they have a reason.

There's a poll that suggests

that 98% of NHL players

do not want fighting

to be taken out of the game.

And that's gonna be hugely important

for us to understand

because these players

are the ones, who

are involved in the game.

They're the ones who are consenting

to that level of violence

and they're the ones who

are making their living

and living their lives in that context.

Y'know, at what point do we say,

"We know you all agree with that

but we've decided

that we know better than you

and we're gonna take it

out of the game?"

And at what point do we actually say,

"No, you're the ones involved,

you know what you're doing."

It was either 3 or 4 years ago,

we recommended

not having fights on the

dropping of the puck, OK?

Because those tend to be

a little more staged

than the emotion of the moment

and it was the players

who resisted doing it.

We have to train humans

to look at systemic causes.

We have to train them

to look at the big picture.

If the problem with concussions

comes from a contact sport

we have to be trained to

look at the big picture

as well as the small picture.

The idea of fighting in hockey

really splits people.

You have these, sort of, two main camps

and the first one might be

rough, old school hockey

is all about a notion of

respect and honour

and the other side says actually

we don't need this anymore.

What we need now, is this

kind of more civilized manner

in which we can actually find other ways

that don't involve our fists.

But the trouble you're

going to have then

is... Which way you go?

Some games in today's NHL...

Can seem a bit "flat."

There were flat games

back 20, 30 years ago too.

But the game itself

feels different than it did.

You were always waiting for a spark,

you always knew it could come.

Where today...

If it fizzles out, you never

expect it to come back.

There's just something

that feels like it's missing.

Everything's changed.

It's just changed.

I truly believe that... the enforcers...

um, they're at their end.

They're at the end of...

their existence.

At this point I... have made peace

that my NHL career is probably over.

And by 'probably' I mean

almost for certain.

You kinda just saw the dominos falling

where, um, even a guy

like Brian McGrattan,

who played I think, 76 games last year,

played 7 or 8 games

and then... got sent down.

Why did you make the choice to retire?

Uhhhm..that choice was

made for me, actually...

I tried to play, uh, this past season.

I wasn't really, gonna go

and... play in the minors again

'cause I didn't really wanna... hafta...

go back all through the cycle

again and fight everybody

who was lookin' to make

a name for themself.

Brian Burke, who himself said

when he put Colton Orr on waivers -

what was it, one or two seasons ago...

He said there's just no place

for guys like Colton anymore

and that's a shame

because the rats are gonna

start takin' over the game.

Maybe it's just a rant

that the game is goin' in

a direction I don't like,

but... I'm troubled by this.

When a, a player with the

character of Colton Orr,

when he can't contribute in this league,

then I'm not sure I like

the way it's goin'.

In 2005, when the game opened up

and it became the fly-zone NHL,

in a lotta ways,

that was the beginning of the end

uh, for the traditional enforcer.

Now, when teams need to roll 4 lines

and have four effective lines

that can do a lot of different things,

you can't afford the roster spot.

They're playing

younger guys who can skate

who can check, who can grind.

If the enforcers, they can't do that,

they're not gonna be

on the team anymore.

I understand... the people

that are against it.

The people that think that

hockey fighters are dinosaurs

and that, fighting has no place

in the modern game.

I disagree with them,

but at least I understand why

they think the way they think.

I hope people,

if they don't agree with it...

That don't respect it,

can they at least understand it?

To me, the story of the enforcers

is extremely, profoundly, important.

I have never seen

anything that so encapsulated

the us-versus-them mentality

complete with all of its violence

and all of its virtues.

It was a dangerous role

and it was a hard way to make a living.

And it was a lot of sleepless nights...

And it was a lot of self-medicating...

And it was terror and it was pain

and these guys - did it.

I wish it was out more

because I've seen it in the press,

and in the papers and on the news,

on highlights

for the last 25-30 years

of us just being dummies

that shouldn't be in the game.

And I think there's some things said,

by people outta the game

that have really hurt very

deeply some of these guys.

I think their story needs to be heard.

They might look

at it in a different light...

"Would I be willing to do that

to fulfill my dream?"

And they might

look at themselves and say,

"Hey, that's...

..maybe that is, there is

some honour in that."

100% unequivocal dedication...

And willingness

to sacrifice yourself, um...

for, for the people you care

about, I mean....

How does that not...

How does that not...

resonate right here?

Kid growin' up in New York City,

bein' the first N'Yorker ever to play

for the New York Rangers.

20,000 people, y'know, cheerin' for you,

yellin' your name,

sayin', "We want Nick."

When I got there, they

never got pushed around again

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