Minnesota Wild: The Debate Rages On

On Sunday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune splashed a story on its front page about Wild forward Derek Boogaard's "fight camp." The piece was written by Wild beat guy Michael Russo, who did a very nice job, and produced a story that qualifies as "required reading".

Part of the reason I liked the story so much is that - in an age when news and opinion have become synonymous, something that this blog is well and truly guilty of - it does not present Russo's opinion, but rather tells the story of the men running the camp, and the boys and families that attend, in the participants' own words.

This being said, however, there is no doubt that the arguments about fighting in hockey rage on. It's a controversy that I wrote about in my review of Ross Bernstein's The Code. And the idea of boys being taught to fight by a guy whose main skill is the ability to be 6'7" and 275lbs has once again brought the dispute to the forefront.

It's Star Tribune columnist Rachel Blount on the other side of the argument, calling the camp "an idea so grotesque it hardly needs to be stated." In case you didn't get the point, the nicest thing she calls Boogaard - who by all accounts is a thoughtful, articulate young man - is "disingenuous" (in a near-dead heat with "big guy.")

Blount's argument is fairly simple: fighting in professional hockey is stupid, but that's not the point - dragging the kids into it is wrong. As in, "Please, won't somebody think of the children!"

Incidentally, ask any male about the last time he had a fight. I guarantee that, for all but those who have a predilection towards bar fights, his last fight will have come before the age of fourteen. Let us not romanticize children as peaceful flowers of hope and goodness. For example, me. When I was a kid, I used to get in fights all the time, mostly with people I was related to.

But the question at heart here is not whether fighting belongs in hockey. It's a more practical question: is there fighting in hockey? Blount obviously knows that there is, and yet is determined to change it, mentioning "colleges, European leagues, world championships and the Olympics" as places that are sans fisticuffs. (This ignores the time that a surprised-looking Mike Vannelli got his butt handed to him by North Dakota's Rory McMahon, but I suppose this oversight can be excused.) And Blount obviously believes that hockey's main goal should be to raise a generation of kids that are blissfully ignorant of fighting on ice.

Which might work - if all hockey players start in USA Hockey, then play college hockey and in international tournaments before going on to the NHL and (presumably) European leagues. But the fact of the matter is that, for 90% of the kids that grow up playing hockey today, that's not the reality. The kids at Derek Boogaard's hockey camp - which, we should note, was held in Regina, Saskatchewan - are not mites from Mendota Heights. These are kids who are playing Canadian hockey, and who hope to go on to play junior hockey in Canada, and - this is almost a guarantee - will at some point drop the gloves with somebody on the ice.

In that world - and in many other hockey leagues - the fights aren't all the unnecessary, patently-ridiculous goon-vs.-goon sideshows of the type that guys like Boogaard seem to specialize in. I need only to remind you of perhaps my favorite fight of the past NHL season- Wild defenseman Brent Burns handing Anaheim cheap-shot artist Chris Kunitz a beating after Kunitz pulled Burns' hair like a five-year-old, the video of which can be found here.

Here's my point: sometimes, the fists will fly in hockey. Guys like Chris Kunitz (who used to get away with crap like that all the time when he was a hack at Ferris State) prove that. Even Vannelli and McMahon proved that, by duking it out in a league in which fights are completely verboten. And while "The Code" still exists in the NHL, it's a bit looser in the more rough-and-tumble leagues, such as in Canada. Even the skill guys - pretty much everybody on the ice, in fact - is going to have to square off at some point.

Dads around the world have faced this question since the dawn of time: if your son is getting beat up, do you shelter him and teach him that fighting is wrong, or do you teach him to take care of himself and stand up for himself?

I'm not here to offer the correct answer for that, but even if the fathers of the world band together as the D.A.V.L. (Dads Anti-Violence League), kids are still going to settle scores with their fists on the playgrounds of Earth. And even if Rachel Blount calls Derek Boogaard "warped" and rails against his "fight camp," there are still going to be Kunitzes in the world that cause hockey fights.

So, hockey dads: do you want your kids to take care of themselves? Derek Boogaard - who had to learn to fight on the ice the hard way, by drinking roast beef sandwiches through a straw for a month - thinks that you might.

And railing against the man as a slightly-evil, money-grubbing schemer - as Blount does - just misses the point entirely.