So I told myself I wasn't going to write about the Olympics this week, but I guess I couldn't help it. If you're glad it's all over, you can relax in the fact that this will be more about hockey than the Olympic games themselves.
I was watching the bronze medal game between Russia and the Czech Republic on Saturday when I heard a CBS announcer come up with a thought-provoking idea. His proposal was that since so many of the hockey players competing in the Olympics already play in the NHL, any serious penalties they receive in the Olympics should carry over. That is, if a player did something worthy of a major violation, the consequences of fines, suspension, etc. would continue into his regular professional games.
The idea sounded pretty ridiculous when I heard it. But then I started thinking about other Olympic sports, and how they deal with violations that occur outside the confines of regular international competition. Hockey, like basketball, exists quite differently from many of the other Olympic events.
While the NHL has a ton of foreign players in its ranks, the games that make up its regular season are not international competitions in the same way that a World Cup is for skiers. I do not know exactly how the rules work for skiing, but because FIS (the French acronym for the international governing body in skiing) is involved in administering the race, an Olympic violation will have outside consequences. Then again, FIS might have the most cryptic rules of any governing body ever, so no one really knows.
Aside from taking a break to let the players participate in the Olympics, the NHL has nothing to do with what happens in international play, and my guess is that the league could probably care less. Hockey, if I'm still allowed to call it a "major" sport, has the most relaxed drug-testing policy of any league, even after the NHL instituted more serious penalties for failing tests.
In fact, last month Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Bryan Berard failed a pre-Olympic drug test that earned him a two-year suspension from international play. Guess how the NHL responded? The league didn't, and because the test -- administered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency -- wasn't given by the NHL, there will be no consequences for his professional career. Something tells me that David Stern would go ahead and redraft the NBA's rules himself if a similar event happened in basketball and the player was going unpunished.
I've taken a hard line on steroids in this column before, but I'm not bothered by the fact that the NHL doesn't really care about that kind of stuff. Hockey is, after all, the delinquent child of the pro sports world; a place where prospects are drafted based on their fighting skills and toughness, and referees aren't allowed to stop a brawl until someone takes a knee.
It's actually funny to think about how much fighting has traumatized the NBA in the past two years when you compare it to a sport that condones it.
From this fan's perspective, fighting is part of what makes a hockey game such a thrilling event to watch. More importantly, any hockey veteran will tell you that fighting is central to the sport.
Dartmouth standouts Tanner Glass '07 and Grant Lewis '07 explain that fighting is ultimately about accountability on the ice. "It allows the players to police the game themselves," Glass said. "A chippy player skating around throwing sticks and elbows will get the crap beat out of him, so it creates consequences for stupid play."
I've heard plenty of people in the stands complain about hockey games getting "ruined" by fights, but Glass and Lewis help put its necessity in perspective. Hockey is a vigilante sport where the players keep each other accountable for every move on the ice. Unlike football or basketball where that burden lies on the referee, the players are ultimately responsible for maintaining the balance.
Considering our safety-conscious culture, I imagine plenty would disagree with the fact that hockey needs fighting. Personally, I love the idea that hockey exists as a renegade sport, resisting the forces that would like to see players clean up their image and place more importance on a good haircut than missing teeth.
Someday the NHL will probably have to succumb to those forces. For now, I'm embracing the fact that professional hockey just doesn't seem to care about its players throwing a few punches in the Olympics.
