Don’t spread them
It should be prohibited to broadcast images of fights in sports. If the players or the owners want to keep fighting, then so be it, but no broadcast. And it’s easy to implement: a broadcast with a few seconds delay.
John Lanthier
Disgusting
I am totally against battles. I’m even thinking of quitting watching hockey if it doesn’t stop. It disgusts me to no end. I don’t understand the people who ask for it…hockey is not a boxing game. Who puts on their pants and bans these tacky battles before our eyes?
Francine Roy
Barbarism sells
All right, but hockey fans love fights. As proof, young defender Arber Xhekaj is currently the team’s most popular player. This, those who run the NHL have understood and compete in imagination to justify this barbaric practice. As for the politicians, they are a little apprehensive of the reaction of their constituents to any law that would ban fighting in hockey. I don’t think Minister Isabelle Charest has a free hand.
Normand Gosselin
real stupidity
The article just before your editorial in Sunday’s Context section talks about artificial intelligence with Joshua Bengio. I couldn’t help but think that we went from artificial intelligence to real stupidity with hockey fights…
Line Leclerc
behind a grid
I completely agree with you. One solution would be for players to wear a grid rather than a visor. I can’t see a player hitting another wearing a grid. Ouch! And it would reduce the risk of facial injuries when they stop pucks for the goalie. We see grids everywhere else, why not in the NHL?
Pierre Renaud
Archaic rules
I so agree with you. It’s allowed on the ice but not in a bar or other places, it doesn’t make sense. It’s a beautiful sport with unfortunately archaic rules.
Mylene Portelance
The role of facilitators and referees
Another improvement would be that those who describe or commentate the games stop calling the battles invitations and that the referees intervene immediately from the start.
Claire Menard Veilleux
Changing the culture among young people
I don’t think fights in hockey are necessary or desirable… but they are part of the culture of the sport in North America. Not elsewhere. So rather than legislating, repressing or regulating, it’s just about changing the culture among players at a young age. To teach them from the start and always afterwards that violence and intimidation are not part of the game.
Tim Huot
I prefer the beautiful game
Thanks for coming out! I’m a big hockey fan, without being a big player. Hockey is the only professional sport where fighting is tolerated. In 2023, are we still selling this? It still works? What could be more beautiful than a clean game without clashes, tic-tac-toe passes… A change is in order.
Hugo Vaillancourt
boxer boxing
Totally agree with your point of view. I hate fights in hockey. It’s hockey that I like to watch. When I want to see boxing, there is a specific sport which is precisely called boxing!
Nicole Corbeil
It’s talent that wins
I hate fights in hockey. It is high time for action. What interests me is the talent of a player like Caufield. Those who win the team never fight. The audience appreciates a goal made with intelligence, but hates the fight, which ends up causing the team to lose.
Michael Charest
Contrary to the spirit of sport
Congratulations on Mr. Mercure’s position. He’s absolutely right: battles in hockey have no place. It’s childish behavior that goes against the very idea of sport. It’s time for hockey to evolve and become more civilized.
Jacques Morneau, Mont-Saint-Hilaire
justice for all
Hockey is a complete sport in itself. Boxing and wrestling have no place in hockey. They are other different sports governed by different rules.
A hockey game is a complete spectacle in itself. Bare-knuckle battles, spectacular as they are, have no place in a civilized society and add nothing to hockey except barbarism.
It is difficult to understand that these acts of a criminal nature are tolerated on the ice with complete impunity. In my opinion, the law should apply on the ice as on the street.
Let’s imagine for a moment the police arriving at the Bell Center and arresting the millionaire thugs who are fighting with their fists in the face… there we would have a spectacle that is worth seeing because it would be such a rare spectacle, that of the same justice for everyone.
Pierre Dupuis