Beef

My love affair with hockey started in high school. I was playing intramural floor hockey when I, just imitating what I had seen on TV, hip checked a guy into the bleachers. Hard. Thinking that I would be penalized (or for that matter thrown out of gym class), play just continued. It was actually a legal play.

I remember thinking to this day that I knew that I would like this sport. I still wish that I knew how to ice skate. In my mind I thought that I would have made a great defensemen.

Fast forward to now. To this day, I am still amazed that aside from boxing, hockey is the only major sport that let’s players who have beef with each other allow them to settle their differences in the game physically. They will suspend the game to allow the players (sometime entire teams) go at it. No getting back at the player by making a great play like scoring a goal or making a great save. Just get it on like the former boxing referee Mills Lane used to say before every championship match.

Now in these cases, the players are penalized for these infractions. Paraphrasing Don Cuneo from the Godfather movie, “…after all, we are not communists.”

This sanction was created back in 1922. Instead of ejecting or suspending players for brawls (referred to as "fisticuffs"), the NHL introduced a five-minute major penalty. This allowed games to keep playing while self-policing. The fans loved it.

Part of the winning formula for today’s teams include having at least one player who represented the “enforcer” of the team. Basically, if you harass the star player, you will deal with the team enforcer.

This concept has transcended to other team sports like basketball. See hoop guys like Rick Mahorn or Dennis Rodman as examples.

Full disclosure time. While I consider myself a peaceful guy, I like it too. I understand the fan appeal. For some fans, anything else would be uncivilized.