Derek Boogaard and the state of hockey

Last year, I caught wind of the Derek Boogaard story by the New York Times. I read it, and was instantly astonished at the entire package. The writing, reporting, photography and videography was just fantastic, not to mention how informative the piece was. I feel like I know a lot about sports, even a sport like hockey that I don't follow too closely. But I found myself learning so much about the game of hockey, the state of concussions and even addiction from the NYT piece.

First of all, I thought the chronicling of the fight's was brilliant. It's not that I enjoyed the violence, but I had a better picture of the health issues Boogaard suffered after watching a number of his fights. They didn't have to link the fights in the text, but I took the time to watch the videos because I felt it was applicable to the text.

The reporting and writing was exquisite, and the author clearly did some serious digging into Boogaard's personal life to get the information he did. The three-part video that accompanied the piece provided me with visuals of the people in Boogaard's life, and their recollection of him. Sometimes it's much more powerful to hear someone say something, rather than read someone say something.

I want to take this last section to continue the discussion we had in class regarding how the game needs to change. Like football, obviously, it needs to be changed from the ground up. That means coaches must be teaching our youth to play hockey in the safest way possible.

I also think that the current players and fans mindsets must change. I heard the argument in class that "the game will never change" and the role of an enforcer is necessary because otherwise there would be no policing. First of all, "the game will never change" mindset is close-minded. We're seeing a gradual change in the way the game of football is being player, in that player safety has been brought to light. It's not far-fetched to think that hockey could follow

As for the argument that self-policing by players will never change, I wonder, isn't that the commissioner's job? Shouldn't he be doing the policing? For example, what if he handed out suspensions for fights? Would fighting and enforcers then be necessary to the sport then?

Think of the big three sports. In baseball if you fight you can expect anywhere from a 5-to-10 game suspension, depending on the severity of the fight. In football, a punch thrown correlates to an ejection, a fine and a possible suspension the following week. In basketball, Carmelo Anthony received a lengthy suspension for throwing a punch, and the Malice at the Palace resulted in some of the most serious suspensions in basketball history. There is no self-policing in these three sports. Instead, there's an understanding between the commissioner and the players that fighting is unacceptable, and if players step out of bounds, serious punishment will follow. It's not a coincicidence that fights are incredibly rare in all three sports -- particularly basketball and baseball.

Boogaard's story should have illuminated the problems in hockey, particularly with concussions and the  role of the enforcer. Instead, based on our conversation in class, it just reassured the disastrous, illogical mindset of the sport's fans..