To fight or not to fight...

One thing I knew, but hadn't fully realized, is being a fan of west coast hockey teams while living in NY is going to be a challenge.

Last night, I caught the first two periods of the Canucks/Oilers YoungStars game before I had to go to bed; it was midnight, my alarm was set for 7am for work, I just couldn't give it the whole game. And really, why would I want to, the score at the end of two was brutal for my babyNucks, I was almost happy to not watch any further massacre on the scoreboard.

I'd been about to turn it off a little before the second ended, but was stopped by a fight.

Cameron Abney, an Oilers prospect who started his WHL career with the Everett Silvertips, my junior team no matter where I am, decided to drop the gloves. Oh, right, my surprise... it didn't exist. This is a kid who waltzed into Everett training camp in Aug 2007 as a nobody -- he didn't expect to stay long and hadn't so much as brought a suit or more than a few days worth of clothes; his parents had to bring him a bunch of stuff when he stuck around past rookie camp -- and made a name for himself by literally pounding the crap out of another kid.

Cameron Abney inspects his knuckles after breaking a teammate's nose during a rookie camp scrap; Everett Silvertips camp Aug 2007 (photo (c) Brynna Owens)

The poor kid on the receiving end of Cam's fists didn't play the rest of camp - felt awful for him, but let's be realistic. I'm not naming him. Why? I can't remember his name. I know he showed up at camp again a couple years later (because we talked about him as the kid that got his nose broken by Abney) but... the impression of seeing him get the crap beaten out of him wasn't a lasting one. Abney and his willingness to drop the gloves and drop them hard was; he stuck around, he signed a contract, joined the team the next year and was well-loved and well-known for his ferocity until the Tips traded him to the Edmonton Oil Kings.

So seeing him last night deciding to square off with Sawyer Hannay came as less of a shock and more of a "gee, Cam's fighting... how... unusual" bit of sarcasm, said to both a friend over IMs and via my Twitter.

That fight also brought a few of the newly-minted "anti-fighting" crowd out on Twitter, asking if we really really really wanted to see that, were we sure we did, really now, come on, fighting's bad! (Ok, it wasn't that vehement, but it has been at other times over the summer). That lead me to tweet this:

@shoot4the5hole For the record, my reaction to fighting hasn't changed that I can tell. But I don't blame fighting for the events of the summer. So. Yeah.

I have mourned this summer along with every other hockey fan with a heart. It's been one tragedy after another, to the point where I've verbally quit the off-season a few times. I've cried, more than I'd like to admit. I've shaken my fist at the hockey gods and asked "WHY??" with no answers more than a few times.

But I don't blame fighting for Boogaard. I don't blame fighting for Rypien. I don't blame fighting for Belak.  I don't blame an "irresponsible hockey culture" for these men no longer being with us.

No, I don't know all the details of any of their deaths, of the surrounding circumstances -- and neither does anyone else. We all have things we know and our assumptions that fill in the blanks, big or small, we all have our biases that make one answer or another perhaps not easier to accept but easier to understand. But at the end of the day, we don't know everything.

I know that painkillers and alcohol don't mix. I've known that most of my life. I assume that fighting didn't make Boogaard take pills and chase them with booze. Pain, physical or emotional, may have asked for a cocktail to numb, but pain comes in so many forms, from so many places, that I'm not going to say it was hockey fights.

I know that depression is a scary scary place and that it's extremely hard to pull yourself out of the dark, even with help. I've been there. I assume that fighting didn't cause Rypien's depression. It may have exacerbated it, but hearing about a car accident (his girlfriend in junior died in a car accident) might have exacerbated it too. Or any number of other things. Depression is a sneaky bastard, it can come up and hit you so hard you're doubled-over and unable to breathe, in the middle of a sunny, happy day with nothing around that "seems" trigger-y. I'm not going to call out hockey fights as the culprit.

I know that Belak was one of the funniest, warmest guys that anyone who met him encountered. I know he loved his girls like there was -- sad turn of phrase here -- no tomorrow. I assume that whatever took him from this world was out of his control, because for every account that I've heard, it doesn't make much sense, but I assume that fighting wasn't the trigger. With all that surrounds Belak's death, I'm not even going to speculate further because there are more questions than answers there, I suspect there will be for some time. But I'm not going to point the finger at hockey fights.

I'm not letting fighting off the hook -- I don't particularly care of staged fights, I've watched them happen for years in junior especially and they always sort of left me cold. I did, however, grow up understanding the "code" of hockey, that there were times when the game policing itself in that manner was necessary. I maintain that that hasn't really changed. Maybe it should and I don't think I'd cry if fighting phased itself out of the game entirely, however to call it out as the root of the heartbreak that was this summer I think is foolish.

I haven't cheered and yelled for a fight in a long time. I don't love them -- I love a good goal by anyone in my team's jersey, or a spectacular glove save by my goalie -- but I don't think the game is ready for them to go. I see nothing wrong with removing some of the glory of dropping the gloves, but I do see a problem with vilifying fights the way I have seen some do this summer, in calling them out as a somehow common element of the tragedies we as a hockey community have suffered this summer.

I know I don't have all the answers. I'm not sure that these deaths were all that connected. I'm positive we shouldn't be tying them together like some have been and wrapping them up in a bow around fighting.

That doesn't seem like the answer anymore than anything else. Not right now anyway.