Response to Violence
in sports: Necessary?
After reading jlazaga’s
post about violence in hockey, this sparked my memories about sports I
played in high school.
Throughout my high school career, I was on three varsity
sports teams: basketball, volleyball, and softball. These sports had very
little direct contact with the other team, and basketball being the highest
contact sport out of the three. To think about it, the only contact sport at my
school for women was hockey, unlike the men who had hockey and rugby. When I
was playing basketball, there was never any physical fighting with the other team;
maybe a few cuts and scrapes, but never full fighting. It was the team and our skills that won us
games, never pushing another player out of the way to score.
To this day, I cannot understand the concept of contact in
hockey; the checking to the boards, (illegal) slashing or sticking. Aren’t
sports supposed to be there, (excluding for entertainment), to showcase the
skills of the athlete? In basketball, if
you put a hand on a player, or run into another with a shoulder, it’s a foul.
If there is any kind of physical fighting, the player is usually kicked out of
the game or suspended. Basketball is all about having the skills to play the
game, without the need of pushing or fighting to score. 
Why is it that in hockey, you have to push and shove people
into the boards to get around them to score? Shouldn’t it be the skill of the
athlete, the puck handling skills, and the skating abilities that help the
player? I believe so. The NHL has created harsher penalties for certain hits,
but it will never ban fighting in hockey.
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