Victoria Silverwood mixes her time as a fan and off-ice official of the Cardiff Devils with her study in Criminology. The intricacies of Ice Hockey as contact sport throw up interesting legal dilemmas. Victoria has spent the last few years investigating and researching these within the sport, their effects on the players, fans and the sports draw in general. All this leading to her recent MSc dissertation entitled “Embracing the Goon: The Legitimisation of Fighting in the EIHL”.
Victoria spoke with UKHL about her work, the effects of violence within hockey, “The Code” and fans reaction to the events they witness.
Many thanks to Victoria for her time, we wish her well in her work.
Vic raises some very interesting points, and mentions the Bertuzzi assault on Moore(?) and the McSorley incident with Brashear, very extreme incidents and the far spectrum of what happens on the Ice, as far as im aware there were no criminal procedings for either incident, although Moore took civil action against Bertuzzi for loss of earnings etc.
I have heard of examples in the extreme from the other side of the spectrum, where the police have been called after a fairly “normal” body check in centre ice resulted in a broken collar bone. Although in all fairness that was a Rec. game.
The problem as i see it is people go to their local Pro hockey team see the physicallity and violence and then bring that to their own rink for the midnight hockey sessions up and down the country, and these are the people that have it all to loose, we have to get up and go to work the next day, its hardly respectable to come into whatever profession you work at with 6 missing teeth a nose with more curves than Kerry Katona and an eye Frank Bruno would be proud off.