artbrom / flickr
I have been living in Buenos Aires for 4 years now. Usually people do not know much about Canada. Sometimes I get weird face when I say I’m from Canada even if I clearly speak with a french accent. First thing Argentineans mention is how cold it must be. Some think we don’t even have a summer. The second element most associated with my home country is ice hockey (“ice” is necessary since grass hockey is quite popular in Argentina). The other day, I was working in a café when a saw NHL images on TV, I was very surprised since argentinean media do not even cover the Stanley cup finals –except its riots of course. Unfortunately, the TV show was presenting images from the Rangers/Devils game that started with a few fights, with the title “Ice hockey or boxing?” As too often, I felt a little bit of shame, as a hockey fan, but also as Canadian/Quebecois. It is somewhat difficult to explain to Argentineans that I enjoy watching hockey, it is a sport of speed and beauty and hockey is part of my culture. Hockey’s image here is limited to fights, violence and dirty hits, closer to Ultimate Fighting than anything else.
Fighting has been part of hockey for so long that it seems almost natural to canadian eyes. However, when you see it from the outside, it seems ridiculous, even idiotic. Try to explain to someone not familiar with north american hockey that fighting is allowed but not really because it is punished; referees let players fight, if they previously agreed to it; and that it does not have anything to do with the object of the game (scoring goals), except maybe “change the momentum”… Believe me, it is impossible to make any sense out of it. Take any other sport, even very physical ones such as rugby or football, and insert fighting in it… it just looks silly and pathetic. I always thought fighting was not a very important part of hockey and that we could easily do away with it, but its absurdity really hit me a few years ago. I was in my hometown with my uruguayan girlfriend. She was getting familiar with our culture and asked to see a hockey game. Since I was bringing here to a small town, semi-pro game, I warned her that it could get violent. She thought I was talking about physical plays, much like rugby… she was horrified when came the staged fights, she could not believe it. There was not much I could say, it is true that if one has not been desensitized to it from a young age, it does seem barbaric.
As for anything else, change can be tough to come about. If you are old enough, you might remember the old days when car belts were not mandatory or when people could smoke in bars, restaurant and hospitals… Although it seems ridiculous now, many resisted when we collectively decided to modify these situations. I believe we came to a point fighting has to be completely eliminated from our national sport. We could not accept this kind of health risk in any other profession. We do know now that hitting someone’s head repeatedly damages his brain permanently… shocking that it took us so long to figure this one out. Still, how can we accept to see young adults hurting each other like this, for something not even directly related to the game itself, as last year’s death of a few “enforcers” forced us to see. With rare exceptions in the russian KHL, fighting does not exist in international and european hockey, nor does it in the NCAA, and canadian junior is seriously talking about banning it as well. Hopefully, the NHL will follow this trend. It might be difficult to get there, considering that the Bruins just gooned their way to the Stanley Cup. Even the Canucks have recently travelled back to the 80s by adding muscles and “enforcers” to their lineup… The biggest problem remains that some important NHL market keep selling hockey using violence. Added to the NHL extremely conservative management, fighting might very well keep making me ashamed of our national sport in front of my argentinean friends. I might have to start pretending I like baseball…