INSIDE HOCKEY

Before heading back home to Manhattan, I stopped in at the NHLPA meetings at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino on Friday to hear what was going on. Chris Chelios talked about the possible lowering of the salary cap in the next couple of years. Ryan Miller talked about setting regulations for goaltender equipment based on their height.

But one of the most important subject matters they were approaching was fighting in the league and the possible ban of it. Georges Laraque has been one of the most aggressively outspoken advocates for keeping fighting in the league.

Back during the All-Star festivities in Montreal, the possible ban of fighting became a huge issue in hockey right after the death of Don Sanderson the week before the All-Stars and another fight that left a young hockey player in an epileptic state right as everyone was arriving in Montreal.

Back then, Georges Laraque became very vocal about the need to keep fighting in hockey. Why? Because of all of the violence that takes place on the ice, fighting is the least of everyone’s worries. There are more dangerous things that happen on the ice that could harm a player. Fighting has become a means to end that dangerous violence that occurs on the ice that have not been deemed as illegal, or hasn’t been caught by the referee. We’re talking about all of the cheap shots that happen on the ice that goes undetected by everyone except the player that was at the receiving end.

If the concern to the public is that fighting brings the sport down and makes it too violent, what they are missing is the high-sticking, the cheap shots, the shoulders to the face…the many things that happen so quickly on the ice that if you’re sitting in the nosebleeds, you won’t see it happen. But these guys do. They don’t just see it. They feel it.

Getting beaten up on the ice doesn’t always involve dropping the gloves and going at it for a round at center ice. That is a means to an end. It is meant to let the other team know that they’re not going to continue to get illegally beat up on the ice. It’s to put the stopper on the true violence happening on the ice that isn't being seen.

What the audience sees is the final act. They never see what leads up to that act. Guys don’t just call each other up and say, “Hey, when you come to the arena, we’re going to have a go.” They don’t. If they wanted to box it out on the ice, they would take up boxing. Fighting, for them, is a means to an end.

But when it comes to fighting, like boxing, regulations need to be put in place to keep fighting clean. Laraque went on a 10 minute rampage on the subject matter after the NHLPA meeting on Friday. When he gets riled up on this subject, believe me, he’ll capture just about anyone’s attention and will sway you to respect what he has to say on the subject matter, because as a hockey player that many call a ‘goon,’ he is fighting to make fighting clean. It’s a very passionate subject of his.

One of the topics that came up in the meeting was choking.

“We’re going to have rules where you won’t be able to do this,” Laraque said of using the jersey to choke your opponent. “Because you can really hurt somebody that way.”

Choking has not been banned or stopped during a fight in progress. I’ve watched videos of Mark Messier choking an opponent until he turned blue. I’ve watched David Clarkson (NJ Devils) being choked until he turned a few dark shades of purple. Choking is very dangerous and with the amount of emotion that goes into the game, a referee should be obliged to stop a choking incident before the other victim becomes seriously injured.

“There will be a suspension if somebody does that…Since when do fights become about choking the guy or clobbering guys in the head? That’s dangerous,” Laraque said.

Choking should be banned. There’s absolutely no place in hockey for it, nor is there any reason why a choking incident should happen at all. The fact that a referee will stand by and allow it to happen as part of what’s allowable in hockey fighting, makes you ask if he could become an accomplice if a choking incident goes too far. It hasn’t happened yet, but really…why is choking part of the fight?

“The circumstances are still going to be there next year,” Laraque continued. “Guys will be more penalized, but next year when somebody falls on the ice and they knock their head on the ice again, what are they going to feel like? Ten minutes wasn’t enough and bump it to twenty?

“What are they doing? They talk about staged fights. That doesn’t make anything safer. What does that do? Staged fights are two guys willing, so what’s wrong with staged fights? Fighting is popular for every game. Like the rule of engagement, again, what are they talking about? Who are we to say that the ref could decide [to say] this was not right, this was right. It would turn into a mockery to do it.

“I’ve been in front of a guy that said, ‘Okay, you can’t fight right now. We’re at the face-off. You know the rule’…so they expect we’re going to meet in the hall in ten seconds. No, it’s true! We’ll make a mockery out of it.

“We’ll talk. We’ll go in the corner…and then we go. That will be a joke.

“Fist fights [are] not the problem. Fixing the problem is finding a way to make fighting safer. Penalizing fist fights…what does that do? How do you fix the problem? Somebody can still get hurt in a fight even though he gets a 25-minute penalty because it was staged. You don’t fix it. We want to fix it but there’s no solution in that."

One of the rules suggested in fighting was keeping the helmet on during a fight. But for those who wear visors on their helmets, it can become a bit complicated. The visor can actually cut the other guy’s hand very badly. Just ask David Clarkson.

He’s cut his hand in the minors numerous times, because there’s a fine if the helmet is taken off during a fight. But at the same time, keeping the helmet on can protect the player’s head if he were to fall and hit his head against the ice.

“I said that all year long,” he said about the nonsense of the league applying rules to penalizing a player if he’s wearing a visor helmet during a fight. “I was saying that and people were saying I was crazy. But the league forced the guys to keep the helmet on or get a ten-minute misconduct. That’s a league rule. You get 10 minutes.

“They say they want to make it safer, but f*ck, if I have a visor, I’m going to have to take it off otherwise they’re going to give me ten minutes. Why don’t they talk about finding a way not to make those guys take off their helmet, because that’s how they get hurt. But no, we’ll give them ten minutes for a staged fight, that’s their solution.

“I talked about it all year long. I said it was a joke because you don’t fix the problem. You didn’t talk about the solution…you just said, ‘oh, let’s penalize the guys some more.’ It’s not fixing it. That’s why I said it was a joke."

So perhaps the solution is in helmet modifications where the visor can easily be taken off during a fight (and snapped back in after).

“Also, they talk about the instigator thing and stuff. What do we have to do? Explain. Don’t call it the instigator rule. You have to re-define what that means. If you jump somebody that’s not willing to come back, that’s dangerous. If you jump somebody that doesn’t want to fight, that’s dangerous and you can hurt somebody.

“If you go fight someone after a big hit,” he said after a goal is scored. “You go after the guy, the guy’s willing to go, you go, but that shouldn’t be a ‘forget it.’ I don’t know what they’re going to do. If they say they want to finish it after a big hit, then they give them a ‘forget it.’ What that does…nobody’s going to fight anymore, because most of the fights happen after a big reaction, like a hit or something like that.

"Usually the guy [doesn’t] back down. They’re going to accept it. You just have to make sure you don’t jump him after they hit you. Go at him, make sure he goes, and then you go. It shouldn’t be an instigator. But if they call that an instigator, every tough guy is going to have two instigators and then they’re not going to fight anymore. They don’t fight anymore because they don’t want a suspension. They’re useless to their team. Their coach is not going to play them anymore.

“So there will be less fighting. There will be more cheap shots. Then they’re talking about fighting for popularity…it screws up the game. You have to make sure that when you go with somebody that the guy is willing to go, and then it’s not an instigator. You won’t have a problem.

“There’s a double standard. Some guys get away with some cheap shots and if you’re a tough guy, you won’t get away with it…until for everybody, it doesn’t matter what the name on the back [of the jersey], that it’s even for everybody…then we’re going to have a problem.”

In Other News

“I’m going to meet with Kenny Holland on Monday or Tuesday,” Chris Chelios said. “And know what my status is there to make a decision. I do want to play, I know that.”

As for the NHL Charity Shootout, Georges Laraque donated his winnings to the Montreal Foundation. Glenn Anderson donated his winnings to a cancer charity foundation in Edmonton.

Roberto Luongo donated his mega-winnings (after finishing second and winning the $17,500 pot, plus additional money from the first round) to Canuck Place, a children hospice in Vancouver.

“I go there maybe a couple of times a year,” Luongo said. “It’s a great charity and a great cause. I was real happy to win that for them.”