I was looking around the internet for hockey articles and I came across one that I found very interesting.
At AOL's NHL Fan House there is a post that says Don Cherry has shown that hockey belongs in hockey. It has recently been voted that a player needs to get five instigator penalties to be suspended.
I was very happy to read this. Regardless of the injures that have occurred, fighting just belongs in the game. To North America, fighting is just as much a part of hockey as a car is to NASCAR.
Don Cherry, although sometimes has his head in the wrong place, was dead on with his opinion in my mind. A lot of players need fighting just to stay in the league. There would be a lot of players left unsigned if fighting was taken out of our game. It also adds excitement and hart to the game.
When I was in Pittsburgh, the first game I went to was against Montreal. Colby Armstrong made a check on Saku Koivu where he actually jumped off the ice and hit Koivu' head. It was a very dirty hit. What Armstrong didn't know was that Sheldon Souray was coming down the ice hard, and before Armstrong could do anything, Souray pounced on him like a cheetah on it's prey. It is the moment that makes that game stand out to me, and even though Souray was thrown out for the remainder of the game, I'm glad that it wasn't for more because he probably wouldn't pick up for his captain again.
Hockey needs fighting. I think that if it was taken out of hockey that attendance would drop as would viewers on television. Fighting is a part of hockey heritage, and should always be in the game.
