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Fighting In Hockey Essay

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The Debate on Fighting in Hockey
Brandon M. Robsion
Devry University

The Debate on Fighting in Hockey
There is no sporting event that brings an explosion quite like that of an ice hockey fight. Ice hockey has always been stereotyped as brutal and unnecessarily violent, a game full of players who are nothing but “goons”. Fighting in hockey is a form of sanctioned violence, as it has deemed acceptable in hockey since the introduction of the National Hockey League in 1917. The league did note even penalize it until the 1922 NHL season (Brandon 2013). A recent political uproar has taken place within the hockey world as more people are pushing to have fighting completely removed from the game. As a hockey player for over 25 years, I have
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Of course the biggest reason for the idea of banning fighting in hockey is for player safety and trying to minimize potentially severe injuries. Players of the sport know what their getting into when they take the ice night in and night out. Players take on full responsibility and many believe it needs to be in hockey as it has always been
The leading case for why some critics believe fighting should be banned is the number of concussions which stem from the players being struck in the head with a punch, or from their heads hitting the ice when falling. Although there is potential for head injuries fighting is not the leading cause. In North America alone, there were approximately 890 000 ice hockey players; these numbers have been on a steady incline every decade. As more and more people play the game, more injuries occur, and concussions have become a rapidly growing cause for concern in a number of sports, not just hockey. The number of concussions resulting from hockey injuries has increased dramatically in the past two decades, but it is important to know what the causes of these injuries are. A study conducted by Rodney Paul and Andrew Weinbach (2011) over the course of two years, which included 555 hockey players who played in the BCHL, one of the leading junior hockey leagues Canada, found that of all the concussions stemming from two complete seasons, only 7.3% were caused from fighting. The main causes of these concussions were a
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