On the Ice with Chris Campellone

Another Round of Sources

chriscampellone — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:57:07 +0000

Now this is an interesting article I came across. This is two years old from the New York Times. This article was written a year after the NHL lockout ended and it discusses how fighting has dropped by 41% since the lockout. The article cites some rule changes among other things that may have caused this drop. However, the article cites the new salary cap as the biggest reason for the decrease in fighting. Teams can’t afford to pay a guy just to fight and thus, the day of the enforcer may be ending in the NHL.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/sports/20iht-NHL.3961322.html

Here’s another dimension I can add to my paper. Concussions, as a result of the violent play in hockey, are causing serious damage to hockey players. This article from Science Daily discusses these effects on the players’ brains and what it means for their futures. With a good source about the health effect consequences of fighting, I now believe I have all of the sources necessary to write a good, solid and thoroughly researched article about the dangers and consequences of fighting in hockey.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/09/990928074708.htm

A few more sources for the paper

chriscampellone — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:20:33 +0000

I decided for the purpose of writing an entertaining paper, I should use a handful of stories of fighting and their consequences. I picked up two stories about individuals who have taken fighting to the extreme and have paid some serious consequences. I have also begun to attempt contacting experts on the field for my personal interview source for the paper. A more in depth look at the sources I’ll be using are below.

1. Jonathan Roy, the son of hockey great Patrick Roy, was involved in an altercation in the Junior Hockey League. Roy reportedly attacked an unwilling player on the other team and pummeled him until officials pulled them apart. There are a number of news venues that covered this altercation, mainly because of the name recognition. However, this fight brings a new light to the debate, how we deal with players who don’t want to fight and are forced into defending themselves. Below is a link to the initial news story as reported by ESPN.com.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=3311529

2. Perhaps the most famous instance of on-ice violence is McSorley attack on Brashear in February of 2000. McSorley, a 17-year veteran for the Bruins, who made a career out of being a fighter and on-ice tough guy got into an altercation with 26-year-old, Canucks tough guy Donald Brashear. In the beginning of the game, Brashear challenged McSorley to a fight and got the best of him. McSorley tried to challenge Brashear to a fight later in the game but Brashear brushed him off. Then, with just 3 seconds left in the game, McSorley skated up behind Brashear and struck him in the head with his stick. The attack resulted in the longest suspension in NHL history, legal trouble and an eventual huge crackdown by the NHL on roughness. This altercation changed the face of the NHL for the next decade and will serve as an excellent illustration for my paper. A link to the AP report of the story the day after the incident is below.

http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/02-00/02-23-00/d01sp117.htm

3. Personal Interview- I have attempted to contact three different sources thus far for this paper. First, is a college hockey player by the name of Nick Asterito. He plays hockey for Worcester State College and also works as an assistant hockey coach for his hometown during the summer. He could give a real life players insight into the fighting debate. Once concept he may be able to elaborate on is, since hockey fighting is banned at all lower levels, why does it suddenly become a necessary part of the game when you reach the pros? I’ve also attempted to contact Temple’s head hockey coach Aaron Voegtli. He may be able to give a great perspective on the necessity of fighting as well. Finally, and this is a reach, I’ve attempted to contact a handful of former professional players. These players would be able to give tremendous insight, but I’m not holding my breath on whether or not they’ll get back to me. That’s all for now.

Sources found through LexisNexis

chriscampellone — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:50:42 +0000

For this next round of sources, I decided to ditch the search engines and to look for more academic articles with the use of Lexis Nexis. As a result, I found some great credible articles that discuss popular opinion when it comes to fighting in hockey. I’m having trouble posting links to these articles in here, but I will describe them below and have bookmarked them for future reference.

1. “Public opinion To Brian Burke, the debate over the future of fighting in the NHL is a question of integrity.” This article comes from the Toronto Star. While the primary focus of the article is more of a Q and A with the Maple Leafs GM, at the bottom of the article is some great poll data concerning popular opinion on the issue. Some very useful and reliable information.

2. “After Whitby Dunlops’ Don Sanderson died as the result of a fight, hockey leagues vowed to crack down on brawling. The NHL, facing public pressure, proposed a ban on staged fisticuffs, the ones that happen right after a faceoff, and stricter rules enforcement. That’s when several prominent heavyweights stepped in to kill the idea.” Here is another article from the Toronto Star from less than a month ago. This article discusses the rule changes the NHL proposed at the beginning of the season to crack down on staged fighting in hockey. However, there has been no decrease in fighting at all and it’s leading many to wonder if the NHL is really doing anything at all to stop fighting. Basically this whole issue has turned into a matter of the NHL versus the player’s union and neither side is willing to compromise.

As for the focus of my paper. I will center around this idea of fighting in hockey. This has been a topic heavily debated in the NHL over the past few years, but has really gained steam since the fighting-related death of Sanderson. This will not be merely a report on whether or not fighting should be banned, but rather a chronology of the evolution of fighting in the NHL and where it stands today. The paper will draw its conclusion based on research of whether or not fighting will be banned or if it is actually here to stay.

More Sources on Fighting in Hockey

chriscampellone — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:53:48 +0000

1. I will consult the official NHL rulebook on fighting. I would use the official rules as the source for the paper and also to see how much these rules are really enforced. There are two seperate rules in the NHL rulebook on fighting and both are relevant to the article.

2. I found this book at Barnes and Noble. I’m going to try to find it at a library before purchasing it but it looks really insightful. It covers the “unofficial” rules of fighting. These are the rules I won’t find in the rule book but the guidelines that NHL and amateur level hocky players follow when engaging in fights. The citation information is below.

Ross Bernstein (2006) The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL.

3. The story of Don Sanderson. Don Sanderson is an amateur hockey player who died as a result of injuries he sustatined in an on ice fight. His death has really lit a fire under the debate of fighting in hockey. While there are a number of sources who talk about the fight and its impending results, I found this article to be the most insightful.

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/21906-Campbells-Cuts-Sandersons-death-must-reopen-fight-debate.html

Brand New Sources

chriscampellone — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:43:53 +0000

Here are two more great sources for my blog:

nhlpa.com- This is the website for the NHL players association. The NHLPA is the player’s union for the NHL. This will contain all sorts of information on labor in the NHL. Some things I’ll find from here include: salary cap information, any impending bargaining problems, rule changes and anything in between. This will be a great website to use in case there are any more labor problems in the NHL, which has had plenty in the past.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/sports/hockey/25fight.html – This is a link to an article from the NY Times about fighting in the NHL. Fighting in hockey is always a topic that has intrigued me. This article talks about how fighting in hockey has been on the rise, 75% in the past three years. It discusses some players who have no real skills other than fighting, and how they have become such a valuable asset to almost every team. If I tackle any issues about fighting in the NHL, this will be a great place to start.

New Sources for NHL information

chriscampellone — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:12:59 +0000

I have gathered a couple more sources for information on my blog.

The twitter feed for ESPN NHL. This Twitter feed sends me constant updates from every team on everything from injuries, to signings to the state of the NHL.

I have subscribed to ESPN’s Insider account. ESPN Insider is a paid program that gives you access to rumors from all around the sports world. This will give you some information before it can become official but I have found it to be very accurate in predicting what is happening. It is almost like I have access to a reporter’s notebook on contract negotiations, injuries and everything in between. This will be a great source for finding stories as they are developing rather than after they develop.

Welcome to On the Ice with Chris Campellone

chriscampellone — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:40:10 +0000

This is my blog all about hockey from the AHL to the NHL. This blog will cover all things hockey. Here is a sample of a few sources I’ll be tapping into for my blog.

The RSS feed for NHL.com

twitter.com/nhlive (This is the twitter from E.J. Hradek the number one NHL expert for ESPN)