Recent reports on brain injury and a lengthy NYT feature on NHL enforcer Derek Boogard are focusing attention on fighting in Hockey. As a supplement, the NYT published an article tracing the origin of fighting in hockey to late 19th century Montreal, where the sport was first played. One theory has it that the first hockey clubs formed around ethnic and religious identities, lending a clannish or gang-like quality to the earliest teams. Thus you had the Victorias (Scottish Protestant), the Montreal Athletic Accociation (English Protestant), the Shamrocks (Irish Catholic), and the National and Montagnards (French Catholic). Researchers found little evidence of fighting between teams that involved punches, but the use of sticks for slashing and clubbing was prevalent. Once fighting was "allowed" in the early twentieth century, incidents of more serious injuries involving sticks declined. In recent years, the last serious case of stick-related violence occurred in 2002, and the NHL averages about one fight for every two games. Read the article here.
