It’s the middle of a scoreless game and a huge bone-crushing hit is laid out to the other teams star player. Suddenly, a 6 foot 6 defenseman comes over and drops the gloves with the player who initiated contact. They both land a few punches, but end up on the ice in a pile of sweat, cloth, and blood. But the question is: Should these NHL Enforcers be able to drop the gloves at all?
Boston University has been studying brain diseases and brains from hockey players and found a link between Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (a degenerative brain disease) and repeated blows to the head that can occur from hockey fights. Dr. Charles H. Tator, a neurosurgeon and researcher at Toronto Western Hospital who directs programs to reduce head and spinal-cord injuries in sports makes it clear, “We in science can dot the line between blows to the head, brain degeneration and all of these other issues,” that concussions are caused in many sports from contact with the head, such as fighting.
The NHL’s data from last season indicated that 8 percent of concussions resulted from fights. Still, Commissioner Gary Bettman said the league and the players were not inclined to enact measures that would limit fighting.
But why did the league decide to not make any measures against fighting? If the league had banned fighting, would players like Derek Boogard, Wade Belak, and  Rick Rypien still be alive? They most likely would have, because scientists say that all 3 of these former players had CTE which is caused by repeated blows to the head from fighting. While hitting may be a part of this diagnosis, fighting causes blows to the head more often than hitting.
If fighting is banned, it could also grow the game from a youth hockey standpoint--because it will dissolve parents’ fears of their child getting injured when they get to higher levels of hockey. Parents have a right to be fearful because hockey has a large reputation for being violent and has a large fanbase only because of fighting.
If the NHL bans fighting, it could reduce violence in our culture instead of promoting it. For instance, whenever I ask a kid who does not play hockey what hockey means to them, they usually say: “I only watch it to watch fighting” or I love how the players fight and beat each other up”. Wow, that’s a great thing to hear from my 8 year old cousin clicked in his booster seat in the back of the car. This could mean that these kids think fighting is okay and that when they grow up, they could likely have engage in violence, just because they thought it was okay.
Sure, people can say that it’s too entertaining to ban, some people say it is; and the media today doesn’t help with the cause to ban fighting either. Usually, hockey fights are intentionally placed in top-10 highlight reels--and can be relentlessly over-showed. But they are never trite to viewers for some reason. The reason people do not want to ban fighting is because they find it very entertaining. The media fuels this addiction to fighting when they show more and more fight replays. However, is the entertainment really worth the health of the players?
Banning fighting in the professional leagues is not only better for the game--but a great idea. It could reduce violence in today’s society, make the game more accessible, and cause less brain injury to players playing the game today. Having skilled players more available makes the game more fun to watch than without them.