Fights becoming less of a common part of OHL hockey
By Tony Saxon, Gueph Mercury
For the second straight year, fighting is down in the Ontario Hockey League.
After a dramatic 24 per cent drop in fighting last season over two years ago, the league said that so far this year fighting is down another five per cent.
The reason is the new rules put in the past two years aimed at reducing and eliminating certain types of players and certain types of fighting. Most notably was last year’s new rule that suspends players and fines teams once a player exceeds 10 fighting majors.
The exception is a fight a player is in that was instigated by an opponent. Those don’t count against his fight count.
Ontario Hockey League vice-president Ted Baker points out the new rules were never aimed at reducing fighting, but at eliminating the one-dimensional player whose sole role was to fight and intimidate.
“The rule was put in to eliminate the one-dimensional player. The intent of the rule was not to reduce fighting, per se,” Baker said. “A by-product of the rule has been a reduction in fighting, which is great.”
Baker said there has been no serious discussion on lowering the 10-fight rule.
“We’ve only been into this for not even two years, so we’ll see how everything trends, but there hasn’t been any specific discussion regarding lowering it in any official way,” Baker said.
“But there’s always a continuous dialogue to challenge ourselves as a league, and the Canadian Hockey League, as to what we can do to enhance the on-ice environment for our players.”
According to the reliable www.hockeyfights.com, with roughly 16 games left in the regular season only one player, Windsor’s Ty Bilcke, has hit the 10-fight mark. Last season, the first for the new rule, there were 14 players that exceeded the 10-fight plateau.
Compare that to the 2011-12 season, when 31 players had at least 10 fights.
It’s not just the one-dimensional player that’s affected. Numbers on a team basis are way down. This year only one team – the Oshawa Generals – has at least 50 fighting majors. In 2011-12 18 of the OHL’s 20 teams had at least 50 fights.
Baker said the rule either helps eliminate the usefulness of players who are solely on a team to fight or forces them to change the way they play the game.
