Captain Fight!

Another classic between the Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Avalanche last night, this one decided 4-3 in a shootout after one of the best overtimes I've seen all year. In fact, that particular bit of 4 on 4 hockey, fast paced and open with chances at both ends, was the best argument you can make against the existence of the shootout (of which I am actually a fan). But that's a story for another day. I think a big rivalry is shaping up between my two favourite teams. Last time they played, it was a 6-2 drubbing the Jets laid on the Avs, but that was the exception, as most games between the two teams have been overtime events or one goal regulation nail-biters. The Avs and Jets made an excellent case to play a stadium series game against each other too.

At one point last night, the teams two captains, Gabe Landeskog and Andrew Ladd, went toe to toe in a passionate captain versus captain fight. Not a person in the rink or on either bench was sitting down, and it was one of the most dramatic, emotion-fuelled moments of what was a very dramatic, emotion-fuelled evening. It symbolizes the emerging rivalry between the two teams, and the fight was one of the big moments of the game.

And some people want to take that out of hockey.

I'm not going to make a logical defence of fighting here and now. I could, and there are logical, well thought out points on both sides, but for the moment I'm interested in the emotional response. I loved it! Hockey is a fast paced, emotional game, and sometimes those emotions boil over. When they do, the result can be an epic, rivalry-enducing fight like the one between Ladd and Landeskog. Some real hate is brewing between these two teams, and while some nasty incidents come from good rivalries, so do some of the best hockey games you'll ever see. Fighting is both an outpouring and a symbolism of those rivalries, and I love it. I love the emotion that comes with it.

Some people will say, "Well, other sports don't have fighting, why should hockey?" To which I would ask, why do we want hockey to be like other sports? Basketball lacks any appeal for me largely because points are too easy to come by, soccer sickens me with the diving antics (and also bores me), baseball is slower than molasses and capital-B Boring, and football has all the pace of car chase in which both drivers are blind and also dead. Fighting is one more thing that makes our already great sport unique. Please, keep it in the game. I don't want hockey to be like other sports, and neither should anyone else. We're better than that.