“Hockey is a physical sport” a line used time and time and time again by both its promoters and its detractors. Be it by those defending an action on the ice or by those who feel there just isn’t enough action. But needless to say in a sport with such physical contact there are always going to be conversation inducing incidents.
In the last couple of weeks such incidents have dominated forums, press releases and blogs concerning my own team, the Belfast Giants. It was only a matter of weeks ago that a much watched hit between Benoit Doucet and Sam Zajac in Braehead took over pages and pages of debate across the league, many initially calling for a ban for the Belfast Giants forward. Subsequent slow motions and assessments caused opinions to change, to an extent, and the league itself saw fit not to impose a ban, but to expunge the penalty awarded by referee Moray Hanson on Doucet at the time from the Canadians disciplinary record.
As such a lot of talk about “retribution” circled last weekends return game between the two sides, but the outcome was one no one wanted.
I am not going into too much depth on the rights and wrongs of what took place other than to say my sympathies do fall with the linesmen who, despite undertaking what I see as correct initial action, due to Zajac being flat out on the ice from a Ryan Crane hit and Doucet moving toward him in that position, they became embroiled in an unfortunate sequences of events which has now led to the end of Doucet’s season through injury. There was no malice in the events and the loss of Doucet is certainly frustrating, but to point fingers at the linesmen who, in their correct initial actions, were doing a thankless job, is to ignore what can certainly also be deemed a “grey area”.
I am sorry for Doucet’s injury. And certainly wish him a speedy recovery. He has been an excellent servant to the Giants in his all too brief period in our shirt.
Since the incident the shouts have been about “let them fight” and “Linesmen never let the players do what is an important part of the game”. This has led to me thinking about the initial statement of this blog.
“Hockey is a physical sport”
Is it? Or is it a “Skilled sport with physical tactics”. No doubt folk will claim there is no difference but in my opinion there is. And it’s this difference that polarises the approach to the sport, not just by fans but by many in the wider media.
I make, nor have ever made, no bones about what I prefer in the sport. The beauty of a tic-tac-toe play, watching an offensive d-man picking a pin point pass to perfectly placed one-timer from an advancing forward, that perfectly timed poke-check when it looks like the breakaway forward is destined to score. But this isn’t to say I don’t appreciate the physicality employed in the sport. I adore a brilliantly executed hip check. Taking out a forward mid-ice because his head is down, perfect example of how physical tactics are part and parcel of the game.
And yes, fighting is certainly part of those tactics, but I do have issues in its application. There is a distinct difference between “Fighting for the Game” and “Fighting for the Grandstand”, examples of both have been seen at the Odyssey over the years gone by.
Physicality in the game is a tactic of intimidation. Putting the skilful players on their toes, looking over their shoulders and keeping out of the way of someone they feel may hurt or, worse, injure them.
The need to pay attention to the intimidation, and not to the game objective, goal scoring.
The fighting I wholly prefer in the game is that which spawns from the ongoing action of the match. The kick back from a skilful forward tired of being picked on. The enforcer sent on to change momentum and show support for his team mates is something that seems to have been lost in recent years from the Elite League. The arrival of the so-called “Sherriff” Sean McMorrow was a sad turn down the road of ‘fighting for fighting sake’.
The repetitive articles in the paper ‘calling out’ forthcoming opposition tough guys like Voth and Knight got tiresome. The grandstanding like David Haye in order to goad a fight became nothing but tiresome. In this there was no real tactic. The player didn’t have that in him. Empty threats of player intimidation in the press were never fulfilled. It was lost on me what he brought to the game outside of a “fight a night” promise, further ammunition to the anti-hockey elements of the media and beyond who saw us not as sportsfans, but as those who wave foam fingers at WWE style ‘Sports Entertainment’.
This caused immense amounts of frustration to those of us who had seen the job of an enforcer/fighter/tough guy taken to it’s zenith on Odyssey ice by the likes of Paxton Schulte and Paul Kruse. Two players who could intimidate the opposition, put pucks in the net and also stick up for their team mates when they needed to. But if I was to name one of the toughest players to wear the Giants shirt, Paul Ferone would be among Kruse and Schulte without a doubt.
A player who demonstrated that sometimes size doesn’t matter. He’d throw in a late hit, a slash behind the play and agitate like few others, but would also surprise, that when the gloves hit the floor he’d probably be one of the favourites to take the tilt. Fist waving furiously he knew that his actions needed backing up, and he had that ability.
An element of physical play that over the seasons have been sparse from the Giants line up. Pat Bateman and more recently Daryl Lloyd have displayed elements that bring both energy to the team and entertainment to the crowd. While Adam Keefe this season has also proven that you don’t need a ‘fight a night’ to please the crowd with physical play.
So from that we come to those in the stands, and the entertainment that the physical tactics of the game bring. I’m not so naïve as to believe fighting has little role in the sport, its need is palpable when the conditions are correct and few things bring the crowd to their feet more readily than a punch up. But in a game dominated by persistent physical play the crowd can be taken and kept on the edge of their seat, waiting for the moment when one of the teams crack and lash out. And even if they don’t a feisty game can leave the punters happy, provided of course those tactics brought the win.
Can fighting be used as a “bums on seats” means? Most certainly, but can it keep them there? Slapshot is a great film, but is it really a means to educate the running of a hockey club? Not really. In my opinion the bums return to the seats due to success. While the fights may be the opening of the door, the skill and success of the game should be the means to hold that door ajar.
No doubt I’ll be taken as a ‘hockey snob’ and not for the first time. I don’t profess to be any authority in the sport, and not least the physical tactics of it. For that I bow to those who have experienced it first hand, or someone like Vic Silverwood in Cardiff who has studied it in depth. Nor do I claim to hide behind the defence of ‘It’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it’; I am certainly open to the debate on the forums or twitter.
The subject is such a widely written about one I feel I can’t do it any real justice in this modest blog.
I do feel however that sometimes the physicality aspect of the game is misunderstood to *be* the game.
And while it has its role within the plexi-glass walls, it is but a means to the objective.
Putting a vulcanised rubber disc through a rectangle of metal and ice, by fair means or, sometimes, foul.
Twitter: @patricksmyth