Brutality On Ice

Nick Paumgarten:

This much is worth saying, though: Hockey is a violent, dangerous game. It is not, as my colleague Adam Gopnik suggested last week, played at the same tempo as soccer or rugby. The players are on skates, on ice, going full-tilt at speeds no human could hope to reach in cleats or running shoes. They must come off the ice every forty-five seconds, to recover their breath, whereas in soccer they can carry on at a jog for the entire ninety minutes. Also, in hockey there is no out-of-bounds. The playing surface is smaller and is enclosed by boards and Plexiglass. They play not with a bladder of animal skin filled with air, but with a disc of vulcanized rubber (sometimes even, I was told as a kid, containing bits of metal from reconstituted steel-belted radial tires). The puck moves very fast. To take it away from an opposing player, you are supposed to hit that player, hard—to separate him from the puck, yes, but also to make him think twice about doing things with the puck later in the game, and perhaps to break his spirit. If this sounds barbaric to you, then perhaps you are not a hockey fan. Maybe you prefer a milder variant—European hockey, maybe, or rec-league hockey, both of which are great fun to play, but frankly usually boring to watch. (An exception must be made for kids’ hockey, which should be, and usually is, clean, exciting, and hilarious.) The head shots are a plague; concussions are an epidemic. And fighting (most of it) is silly. But fighting is not the cause of most hockey concussions. The scolds who wish away the ferocity of North American hockey and pine for the Euro variety must not have watched much of the latter. Playmaking without peril is like the Stones without Charlie Watts. Also, the players are covered in advertisements. It looks ridiculous. Before anyone accuses me of being Don Cherry, 1) Cherry looks even more ridiculous and 2) I’m not knocking European hockey players. In fact, over the years, many, if not most, of my favorite N.H.L. players have been Swedes, Czechs, and Russians (Larionov, Fedorov, Forsberg, Datsyuk, etc.). It’s the fact that they can bring forth such artistry amid the menace of an N.H.L. game that makes the mere recitation of their names an act of hockey prayer.

Isn't the international rink bigger than the NHL variety?  I would think that alone would hinder the European players and give the big hitters the edge in the NHL.  The NHL and North American hockey in general makes the guys who can't skate gracefully or handle the puck, but can blast somebody from the blind side a valuable player.  I don't know think that is for the best.  I will agree with him that Don Cherry looks ridiculous, especially when he's celebrating Burns Day.