Lose the 'Gunslingers'

Everybody has something to say about fighting in the NHL. There are those who say it has to go. That it drags hockey down and appeals only to spectators' base instincts. Then we have those that say the more fisticuffs we have the more ‘entertaining’ the product.

Both these positions are fundamentally flawed. Too much fighting that isn’t directly related to the game is farcical and makes a mockery of the sport. No fighting, I believe is just as dangerous. My position is simple, fighting should exist as a spontaneous reaction to the intensity of the game. What needs to be killed is the ‘side show’ 'under the big top' aspect of the fighting. The orchestrated fight is the most ridiculous thing in the game. It adds nothing and makes critics derisive allusions to the WWF, sadly, accurate.

So how do we remove the premeditated fight or the hired gun goon from the game. Very simply – Time On Ice (TOI). Uni-dimensional players are usually easily spotted by their lack of ice time. The top 5 fighters in terms of total number of fights, had TOI averages as follows:
-Jarrett Boll 8:00
-George Parros 5:56
-Riley Cote 4:11
-Zach Stortini 8:10
-David Clarkson 12:10

The NHL, using stats that are already collected every game could create a fighting major to ice time ratio creating a minimum amount of ice time required for those athletes racking up fighting majors. If this minimum wasn’t met the team would be fined and the player suspended on a graduating scale. The above 5 fighters TOI average is roughly 7.5.

I’m not a mathematician and I won’t even try to throw together a logarithm which can solve this issue. However, I believe strongly the league could create formula that ties the number of fighting majors to TOI in a fashion that is fair, impartial and transparent.

Imagine, just for example, that the minimum ice-time required by a player in the top 20 in fighting majors had to be 10 minutes average TOI. This would mean Flyers head coach John Stevens would have to find another 6 minutes of ice for Riley Cote. Ice that I’m sure he’d rather give to Joffrey Lupul or another more multi-dimensional hockey player.

This would force teams to find hockey players first and tough guys second. Arguably, New Jersey has already found this in David Clarkson, who not only played 12 minutes a night but also chipped in 22 points. In comparison Cote’s TOI nadir was 9:08.

If coaches were forced to play their one dimensional hockey players, in order to comply with this new rule, those athletes would soon be replaced. Or the tough guys would be forced to evolve.

This transition is already taking place. Chris Neil and Sean Avery represent the vanguard of the new tough guy. I say accelerate it. The game is tough and needs to be kept that way, but the side show era should be buried forever.