Oh God, I'm actually writing about fighting in hockey. Ugh.

For a minute there, in the wake of the Don Sanderson tragedy, before it was discussed ad nauseam by every TV and talk radio pundit in the country, I almost thought this topic might be worth writing about. Ultimately though, it seemed kind of pointless to bother-- we get it: some people like fighting, some people don't.

Now, with the NHL pretending it wants to curb "staged" fighting, the debate appears to be back in full force, and I've got a couple of observations that I'd like to make before the whole subject becomes excruciatingly tiresome again. Assuming that hasn't already happened.

Let's start with two things that strike me as really peculiar about the new rules that the NHL GMs are recommending.

For one, to curb "staged" fights they'd like to assess a 10-minute misconduct in addition to the fighting major, if a fight occurs at the drop of a puck. Um... but what's to stop players from skating around for thirty seconds and then putting on their little dog and pony show? Answer: by the sounds of it, pretty much nothing. You don't think players are going to notice this gaping loophole? For fuck sakes, during local radio spot the other day even PJ Stock noticed it!

So then the rule is completely pointless-- plus, as Down Goes Brown excellently points out, fights that start right after a puck drop are sometimes both useful, and kind of seriously awesome.

The second one, I think, puzzles me even more-- though I imagine I'm in the minority on this one. They would like to curb the fighting that occurs in response to clean hits. Um... hey geniuses, if guys keep wanting to pound the shit out of each other after a "clean" hit, maybe you want to take a look at what constitutes a clean hit?

Of course, that, despite the Players Association's calls to penalize hits to the head, doesn't appear like it's going happen, so I guess we should just stick with the fighting stuff.

And... well... honestly, I don't know if there should be fighting in hockey-- probably not, but not because it isn't sometimes awesome-- I guess maybe because its kinda retarded and not safe.

But what I do know is that the pro-fight camp needs to find themselves some better arguments, and better spokespeople, or they are going to keep getting out-argued, and keep looking like dinosaurs who cling to the idea of maintaining some connection "old school" hockey in the game, as though it's death would signify the death of their own childhood. (That's what it is, right?)

Like, could they find a more fucking worthless set of arguments? Their positions are disarmed so quickly and easily that any "debate" just turns into a pointless, redundant shouting match.

You hear stuff about how much the fans cheer for fights, you hear that it's "part of the game", part of the tradition. Ugh.

Um... yeah, people like to see car wrecks, too. People watch that Jim Belushi piece of shit. Whether people cheer something or not is an incredibly shitty indicator of how reprehensible it might be. Shit, if we turned off our moral compass and made decisions based on what people stand up and cheer for, we'd already be living The Running Man-- which I admit would fucking awesome, but it's no way to run a society. (I think. Hmmm...)

I mean, if you want to completely miss the point about this being a safety issue, I guess it's fine to mention that people like it-- I certainly don't buy the other side's bullshit that you can't market fight-friendly hockey in the States--  but fuck, if you don't think it's a safety issue, find a way to argue that. Or if you think it's a safety issue on par with a guy standing a foot away from a 90mph fastball, driving a stock car at over 200mph, or catching a pass over the middle with Bob Sanders bearing down on him, maybe there's your angle.

Oh, but it's tradition. It's part of the game!

Yeah, we get that. It's just... you know, it's good to tear down traditions when we start recognizing them as barbaric or dangerous-- it's called progress-- evolution. Now, I'm not even saying that I think hockey fighting is either of those things, but the buttercups sure are, and you walk right into their trap when you shit out this turd of an argument.

So then where do we go from here?

To my mind, one of the few pro-fighting arguments that appears genuinely tricky to disarm is the one you'll hear Don Cherry constantly use about the instigator rule: that the threat of having to get the shit beat out of them keeps the dirty players in line. Unfortunately, that one only kinda works because the NHL generally does a piss poor job of policing and disciplining its players, which makes it a bit of a non-starter-- arguing in favour of vigilante justice doesn't usually go so well.

Am I missing some key points? Oh probably-- but those are pretty much the basics, and they're just not very compelling. Honestly, at this point I couldn't give less of a shit whether fighting stays in hockey or not. But I do enjoy a solid argument (anyone who's ever read the comments over at Drunk Jays Fans undoubtedly knows this), and right now, the pro-fighting folks need to seriously get their shit together. And they should maybe find a few more folks who aren't suffering from post-concussion syndrome, and don't think like septuagenarians, to assume the mantle, if they want to have any hope of stopping the slow purge of fighting from the game.