Fighting in hockey

He sure seems to be better in his writing than he is in person. Great column and thabnkjs for the heads up on his appearance.

Not to derail the tread too much but if the Liberals had a half decent leader does Dryden get re-elected or did he just not connect with his riding?

 

I think he just got caught up in the anti-Liberal wave of the last election.

He's a great writer but he thinks about every sentence before he speaks.

I watch "One on One" semi-regularly on CBC on Sunday morning at 12:30, right after my favourite CBC programme "Land & Sea" a long standing documentary programme about life in Atlantic Canada.

The shows are independently written and produced in either Halifax or St. John's.

http://www.cbc.ca/landandsea/

One of my fav episodes was the Dec 18th one, "Cape Breton Fiddles".

You can watch all the episodes online. They're all fabulous.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming on fighting.

PS: The "Mummer Man" was pretty great too

 

Speaking of Dryden he has a long essay in today's Globe about the subject: "Give up the fighting but keep the fight"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/what-hockey-needs-is-to-give-up-the-fighting-but-keep-the-fight/article2294682/

“Fight” is not “fighting” or high-speed cheap shots. Fight is never giving up. Gretzky, Orr, Richard, Lemieux, Lafleur – they were great fighters. They fought with their head, hands, legs, will, and need to be the best, and rarely with their fists. Crosby too. The toughest players aren’t those who hit but those who are willing to be hit, to fight their way to the net, to fight expectation and disappointment to score the game-changing goal.

Should be lots of discussion on this.

 

Same essay.

 

Yup. Slightly edited for the Globe but basically the same piece.

 

Well, The Globe and Mail has copy editors.

 

Fighting majors are down 25% this year from the same time last year.

New York leads the league this year but the Blue Jackets are second--the best team and the worst team

Can't extrapolate much from that.

 

The NYT dispels a great deal of antique nonsense.

www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/sports/hockey/flying-fists-dont-add-up-to-victories.html?ref=sports

www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/01/22/sports/22fight-GFX.html?ref=hockey

 

On very rare occasions, a team that likes to fight will win the regular-season title, like the 1980 Flyers or the 1991 Blackhawks. Just as rarely, such a team wins the Stanley Cup.

Anaheim did in 2007, when it led the league in fighting. Boston won it last season while finishing tied for second in fighting. And although the Bruins enthralled a lot of fans in their Stanley Cup run, many others despised them for the perceived violence of their play.

Must be jealous that the Bruins didn't invite him to drink out of the Cup like the Rangers did. :

http://www.randomhouse.ca/author/results.pperl?authorid=35508

 

Fighting in hockey, no matter whether you agree with it or not, is a small part of a culture that goes to toughness, and toughness has little to do with fighting. It has to do with intimidation.

No matter how skilled you are, if the other team intimidates you physically and you don't push back, you'll get run out of the rink and you will lose.

Boston proved that in last year's Final.

 

Good piece by Washington Times beat guy Stephen Whyno on Caps tough guyJoel Rechlicz.

I'm not trying to suck up to Moddy but Whyno does a helluvajob in my opinion. He could easily replace a few hockey writers up here in Canuckistan

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/2/capitals-rechlicz-hopes-see-canadiens-bourque-satu/