The consequences of repeated head trauma have become one of the biggest issues in sports over recent years. While some may consider outlawing fighting a way for the NHL to attempt to curb head trauma, Commissioner Gary Bettman sees fisticuffs as an intrinsic part of the game.
In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Bettman argued fighting still has a role in the NHL:
Bettman's stance goes back at least a few years.
In March, TSN's Rick Westhead wrote extensively for CTV News about email correspondence between the commissioner, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and Brendan Shanahan, who was the league's director of player safety at the time. In the emails, Bettman made the case for why banning fighting was a bad idea:
Do you remember what happened when we tried to eliminate the staged fights? The "fighters" objected and so did the [NHLPA]. Eliminating fighting would mean eliminating the jobs of the "fighters," meaning these guys would not have NHL careers. An interesting question is whether being an NHL fighter does this to you [I don't believe so] or whether a certain type of person [who wouldn't otherwise be skilled enough ...
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Article written by Joseph Zucker
Gary Bettman Comments on Future of Fighting in NHL
June 28th, 2016 by Joseph Zucker Leave a reply »
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