Scene: A courtroom in New York City, just down the road from the NHL head offices where the keepers of the flame – the defense represented by the firm of Milbury, Cherry, Burke and Clarke – and voice of the sane, this irrelevant writer, are in the room to decide the fate of fighting.
Prosecution: Your honor, the prosecution believes that fighting in hockey has reached a crossroads and needs to be eliminated. It has surpassed its necessity and purpose. Don Sanderson has been dead for almost three years now and what have we learned? Nothing, your honor.
I understand my contemporaries on the other side of the court will use the same tired cliches to justify the role of fighting in the game. I’m here to destroy all of those notions in the same manner that Mr. Milbury destroyed the New York Islanders when he traded Zdeno Chara and Jason Spezza for Alexei Yashin and gave him $87.5 million. Talk about the pansification of your team.
Milbury: (takes off his shoes) Come here, you twerp!
Judge: (bangs gavel) Order! Proceed, councilor.
Prosecution: Thank you, your honor. The first notion that is always used when defending fighting is that it will keep the pests in the game honest and keep them from taking cheap shots at the stars. You know, the Dave Semenko rule.
Let me take you back to Mar. 7, 2010. Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke, the dirtiest player in the league, leveled Boston’s Marc Savard in the head with the cheapest shot the league has seen post-lockout.
You would think the hit that took the Bruins’ best forward out of the game and helped turn his brain into liquid nitrogen would have sparked a bench-clearing brawl of all time? Nobody fought Cooke after that hit, your honor. If fighting wasn’t needed then, when will it be?
The next myth I’ll contradict is that the public wants fighting in hockey and won’t watch if it’s gone. People may be entertained by it but it doesn’t stop Canadians from watching the World Junior Hockey Championships and giving TSN ratings between 2.5 to 3 million people with not a fight in sight.
Nearly 3.5 million Canadians watched Sidney Crosby lift Lord Stanley in 2009 and 10.6 million Canadians watched the gold medal game in Vancouver. Even 27.6 million people watched that game in America. Yes, the same country that watches as much poker, darts and hot dog eating as hockey. The only thing missing was a scrap, and nobody changed the channel.
The concussion issue has to be dragged into this too, your honor. There’s a cloud of questions around Crosby on when he’ll be able to play again. It looks like Savard’s life may not be the same because of Cooke’s hit and other subsequent hits. He was nowhere to be found when his Bruins skated the Stanley Cup up and down the ice in Vancouver last June. Eric Lindros’ career was never the same, nor was Paul Kariya’s.
Cherry: (His right thumb up) Objection, your honor! None of them got hurt in fights.
Prosecution: I understand that, Mr. Cherry, but let me ask you this: if these players had their careers ruined because of concussions from getting hit in the head with elbows and shoulders, what’s the logic of allowing players to punch each other in the face with bare hands?
Cherry: (silent)
Prosecution: Finally, the late Bob Probert, one of the game’s most celebrated brawlers, died in July 2010. After he passed, researchers at Boston University found a disease in his brain called CTE. I won’t bother pronouncing the acronym because Mr. Cherry can’t pronounce Toronto.
Cherry: It’s Tarana, wise guy!
Prosecution: This disease causes dementia, memory loss and depression, your honor, and it’s caused through brain injuries, which is what a concussion is.
I ask the jury to take in all of this evidence and answer this question: what is necessary about fighting that has to be kept over all my evidence?
Cherry: Tea Time at the end of my Rock ‘em Sock ‘em DVD’s! If you don’t like the fights, turn on the kettle!
Prosecution: (looking puzzled) The prosecution rests, your honor.
