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July 14, 2020 By: Terry Frei

Will NHL players still get fighting mad amid all the precautions?

This is the appropriate time to move toward a permanent “banning” of fighting in the NHL.

In line with the Phase 4 protocols agreed to by the NHL and NHLPA, players will be expected to memorize — or at least follow — highly detailed protocols governing their bubble existences on and off the ice in Edmonton and Toronto.

It all evokes reactions similar to those tied to the protocols outlined for NASCAR, the PGA Tour, MLB, NBA and NFL.

They’ll break them, if only by accident.

In the NHL, it runs the gamut from COVID-19 testing being part of the everyday routine, using elbows or knuckles to tap floor numbers and no talking in elevators, wearing masks outside rooms, to on the ice making sure water bottles and towels are individually designated and not used communally.

Actually, there’s a lot more.

But what it all means is that these are extraordinary times calling for extreme measures. That’s being driven home to the players and the team parties.

So once a game starts, to what extent can it be business as usual on the ice?

Don’t tell me 100 percent.

Don’t say, hey, it’s the chase for the Stanley Cup.

Don’t tell me once the puck drops, it’s like Game 4 in front of an overflow crowd in Pittsburgh.

It won’t be, not in a sport that perhaps more than any other draws energy — for both teams — from its crowds.

(Artificial crowd noise, pumped in, won’t offset that loss of electricity.)

There is sharp-edge emotion in lunch-hour drop-in hockey at local rinks, but this is different.

Also, it’s not just about going into the corners and physical play in front of or behind the net.

I’m wondering if the messages sent in every other aspect of the bubble existence will contribute to an additional unwritten protocol.

Don’t drop the gloves.

Don’t fight.

I brought it all up with Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar during his training camp Zoom availability Tuesday.

“I think our guys, once it’s all been established and we get to the bubble, we’ll play hard,” Bednar said. “You put that out of your mind, the things that are going on in America and the whole world with the virus. I think it’s everyone, not just our guys, that are more cautionary. You go out in public and you see people wearing masks and washing their hands and using sanitizer and pushing buttons with their elbows.

“I think that’s just sort of common practice right now, the smart way to do things. We do what we can to protect ourselves so that when we get in to the games, that we’re able to do what we love, which is to play the games, and do it the way we have all season long.”

Bednar, who was known to get in a scrap or 2,000 during his journeyman’s minor-league playing career after growing up in Saskatchewan, didn’t address the fighting issue.

But again, the NHL is saying it’s risky to talk with an opponent if they find themselves in the same elevator (each team has its own floor), but relatively safe to fight on the ice? That’s in addition to the “routine” battles of the sport.

I get that in theory, everyone on the ice is being tested daily and that a fight isn’t always close quarters from the first punch, to the falls to the ice, and to the skates to the penalty boxes.

I get that fighting increasingly is rare in the playoffs under normal circumstances. The pure “enforcer,” so often the smartest guy on the team, has skated off into the sunset, so the enforcer vs. enforcer sideshows are history.

But the point is, the NHL and NHLPA are going to give in to the inevitable at some point.

It could have been now.

Citing whatever emergency reasoning necessary, ban fighting, period, both as part of the Phase 4 protocol and then moving forward.

By “ban,” of course, I mean making fighting more than a 5-minute major, making it subject to game misconducts and suspensions. (Yes, the counterargument is that then the fourth-liner tries to engage your star, but…)

I’ve covered the NHL so long and attended so many rodeos, I know the reaction that draws from many.

I can make both the pro-fighting and anti-fighting arguments on automatic pilot.

Actually, I can make them in shorthand, since I’ll give you credit for knowing where each argument goes. One problem is there are nuances and gray areas that should come into play, but usually don’t in the era of pick one extreme for a contrived “hot take.”

Pro: It’s about accountability. Deterrence. Standing up for yourself … or teammates. Spontaneous emotion. Injecting energy. A wing of fandom loves it: Look around when a fight breaks out! And the way some of the anti-fighting zealots talk, we’re still in the era of bench-emptying brawls and “Slap Shot” is the nightly script in the NHL. (“…what with the litigation, the notoriety, his subsequent deportation to Canada, and that country’s refusal to accept him.”) Look at the maddening yapping and jostling in NCAA hockey, for example, thanks to cages and no fighting.

Anti: Fighting is unnecessary and an exception rather than the rule in an internationally popular game with NHL rosters that look like a United Nations roll call. They still too often are other sideshows having little or nothing to do with accountability, and the kicker now is that clean hits are deemed drop-the-gloves actionable. Also, given increased emphasis on concussions and CTE, fighting is dangerous and legally risky.

Needless to say, I’m aligned with the anti-fighting argument, for the reasons above and more. I recoil from the reflex reaction to this, the lazy argument that anyone who believes the NHL would be better off without fighting DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE GAME!

(Never mind that former greats often have opined the NHL could step away from fighting.)

That’s all the backdrop.

Now we’ll see how it plays out in the bubbles.

About Terry: Terry Frei is the author of seven books. His novels are Olympic Affair and The Witch’s Season, and among his five non-fiction works are Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming; Third Down and a War to Go; and ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age. Information is available on his web site, terryfrei.com. His woodypaige.com archive can be found here.