The Two Sides Of Hockey Violence

If you haven't seen the Jesse Boulerice/Ryan Kesler incident, you have to take a look. Here it is:

Now, hmmm, what does that remind you of?? Maybe Simon The Barbarian? At least Boulerice was a man about it, immediately saying, "I reacted in a bad way — the wrong way" where Simon initially made no comment. Eventually The Barbarian was forced to talk to the media by his team after the suspension was handed out by the league saying "There is absolutely no place in hockey for what I did" in a clearly prepared statement (although it was clearly not written by him). Boulerice is sure to get 20 games, and likely more than Simon as Boulerice is a young player and Simon a member of the old guard. EDIT - Boulerice got 25 games, the same as Simon so I guess that's fair ...

Between this and the Steve Downie incident, the league is getting horribly bad PR just as it is trying to make waves with the games in London and the opening of its midtown Manhattan store. So what should they do? Listen to me. But whatever ...

On the other side of the coin from the above hooliganism, watch the below fight between D.J. King and Darcy Hordichuk; it shows a lot of why I love this sport.

Guy makes big, slightly dirty hit on weaker skill player, teammate of said skill player steps in to defend him, hitter accepts the fight as retribution, guys duke it out, teammate figher (who won I think) taps the other guy for a fight well fought (watch for it with 38 seconds left in the clip), crowd goes wild. It wasn't premeditated, it was good hockey and shows the class and respect of some of the players in the league. A Scotty Hockey attaboy goes out to D.J. King. Of course the FSN got the wrong guy in the fight in their graphic, but the broadcasters for this league are a joke.

It is for players like King that violence should never be removed from the game, just the meathead goons that turn it into something barbaric.