So I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out!

2009-01-17_0182, originally uploaded by whitesharkphoto.

Yeah, it's one of the most often discussed aspects of hockey--the fighting. At some point every year or two a big discussion comes up about banning fighting in the sport. If you ask me though, the sport would be lesser without the fights. I'm not trying to say that I like the violence or want to have the world thinking that everyone can solve their problems by beating each other up, but within the context of the sport, fighting must really be understood for what it is, and that's _part of the sport_. Very rarely will a hockey player fight because he's pissed off at another player (though that does happen). More often the fight happens to serve a very specific purpose--to send a message to the other team, to repay a cheap shot that the ref might have missed, or simply to fire up a team that's down and give them some spirit. No matter what the reason, the hockey fight is an integral part of the sport, and I love that though we have referees, they can't see everything at once and the sport still has this mechanism for self-policing.

About the photo: Another of Kelly's photos, this is Sebastian Geoffrion, grandson of Bernie Geoffrion, an NHL Hall of Famer who played with the Canadiens and Rangers for years. Check his story out on Wikipedia sometime, it's a really interesting read!