By Chip Alexander
Raleigh News & Observer
It was early in the game and the Carolina Hurricanes were sluggish when Tim Conboy decided enough was enough.
Before a faceoff, the Canes forward looked over at Chris Stewart of the Colorado Avalanche and invited him to face off and fight.
“I asked him and he said, ‘Sure, I’ll go with you,”‘ Conboy said.
Conboy landed a few punches and took a few, ending with five-minute major penalty for fighting and a black eye. The Canes, energized, went on to win. As for the fight, the RBC Center crowd loved it.
“Let’s face it,” Canes defenseman Tim Gleason said. “Fans like to see a little blood.”
But should fighting be a part of hockey? That’s one of the issues being debated this week as the league’s general managers meet in Naples, Fla.
One recommendation made by the GMs on Tuesday was that players in such “staged” fights at faceoffs receive a 10-minute misconduct penalty as well as a five-minute major penalty. The proposal will go the NHL competition committee, and, if passed, to the board of governors for final approval.
The general managers also proposed that referees more closely enforce the instigator penalty, especially against players who wear visors and instigate fights. None sought to ban fighting completely, however.
Commissioner Gary Bettman said before the meetings he did not sense “an appetite to have a complete abolition of fighting from any of our constituent groups: players, coaches, general managers, fans.” He said the focus would be on “rules of engagement.”
“How fights start, helmets, do you stop a fight when helmets come off, do you prohibit yanking helmets off, takedowns.”
When Conboy and Stewart went at it in the Feb. 22 game, Conboy’s helmet flew off, but the fight did not become malicious.
“It was the first period, and we were flat,” Conboy said. “It was one of those things to get the bench going, get the crowd into it.
“For our guys, it gets their adrenaline going a little. That’s what I was trying to do.”
But there are fights that have a nasty edge to them. Those often are necessary, players say, and should remain in the game as a deterrent.
“The game polices itself,” former Hurricanes and current Boston Bruins defenseman Aaron Ward said. “Are you going to take bean-balling out of baseball? That’s something that has been in the game for a long time, and it’s a way of policing the game.
“Purists understand fighting has its place and it’s a necessary evil to our game.”
Hockey fans seem to agree. Just check out the number of daily hits on www.hockeyfights.com.
“In a game, it’s the fastest way to get 20,000 people standing and cheering and clapping their hands,” Hurricanes defenseman Niclas Wallin said.
Conboy said fighting enables players to take care of “dirty hits, stickwork, stuff like that.”
“If someone gets in a fight and gets beat up, he’s less likely to do it again,” he said.
But getting “beat up” can be dangerous or even lethal. In early January, Don Sanderson died from injuries sustained during a fight in an Ontario Hockey Association game.
Sanderson, 21, was playing for a senior league club team in a Dec. 12 game. He banged his head against the ice during the fight and lapsed into a coma.
Hurricanes prospect Trevor Gillies of the Albany River Rats has been out because of a concussion since Dec. 20, when his head struck the ice during a fight in an American Hockey League game.
In NCAA hockey, fighters are disqualified from the game and can be suspended from other games. Fighting is not allowed in Olympic hockey and in European pro leagues.
Will the NHL change?
“In a game, things get heated and tempers flare,” Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford said. “If it’s just a hockey fight, I think that’s OK. If they can’t do that, some players will use their sticks to protect themselves and it could be a worse situation.
“As time goes on, it will probably be phased out.”
Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, a rough-and-tumble type when he played in the NHL, is among those who favor fighting in hockey, but, he said, the times ó and players ó change.
“If fighting gets totally banned in the junior ranks and the college ranks, then you’ll have a group of players come up (to the NHL) who have never fought,” Ruff said. “I think it all starts there, eventually. It will come out of the grass roots.”