Where NHL enforcers come from

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Steve McBroom isn't convinced that the fighting his young hockey-playing sons witness at the National Hockey League level will have an effect on them.
"I don't think that the fights they see while watching an NHL game on TV is going to have any effect on how they're going to play the game or what kind of player they're going to become," said McBroom, a Toronto parent of boys 10 and 8, and an assistant coach on his older son's team.
"Certainly neither one of them at this point thinks they're going to make the NHL by being a fighter. That is not in their minds at all."
Maybe not, but some sports psychologists believe young players who witness fighting in hockey at the higher levels are more prone to develop into aggressive players and get into fights themselves as they continue their minor-hockey careers.
"There's plenty of research around to show that kids watching violence are stimulated to become more violent themselves," respected Vancouver sports psychologist Saul Miller said. "It's definitely an issue."
Over the past 25 years, Miller has worked extensively with both professional and amateur athletes and has acted as a consultant in the NHL to the Los Angeles Kings, Vancouver Canucks, Nashville Predators and St. Louis Blues.
"I've worked with a lot of tough guys in the NHL and there's no question that many of the more physical and aggressive younger players have developed that way by watching what their role models did as they grew up," Miller said.
"Kids learn from watching others, particularly people that they really respect or would like to be like," said Gretchen Kerr, a sports psychology consultant and associate professor at the University of Toronto.
Fighting and its historic role in hockey once again come under debate in Canada after the death last week of Don Sanderson, 21, a senior player with the Toronto-area Whitby Dunlops. Sanderson fell to the ice during a fight and struck his head. He was buried on Monday.
Sanderson's death has led many to question why hockey leagues, including the NHL, have not done more to eradicate the practice from the game.
Mike Connolly was an assistant coach with his son Tyler's minor-midget team until the end of last season in Mississauga. While McBroom's sons haven't reached the age where they're allowed to body-check, Connolly sees minor players coming to the rink ready to rumble.
"I can say 100 per cent that they are influenced by what they see in the NHL in terms of fighting," he said. "It's a bit of a joke to them. It's just them emulating what they see on TV in the NHL.
"It's like entertainment to them. It's almost like the video-game scenario these kids have grown up with. I kind of look at it like that."
Connolly's opinion is echoed by James Silva, who coaches his 13-year-old son's minor-bantam team in Winnipeg.
"I believe the younger kids are affected by watching fights at the NHL level," he said. "I see it all the time at the rink with the players bringing this big attitude onto the ice.
"I get the sense that some of them want to get into fights just to try to impress their buddies on the team."
In spite of the influence, fighting at the NHL level might have on younger players, Miller said he is not advocating that it be abolished from the sport.
"Frankly, it's part of the game," he said. "I don't think it's the best part of the game, but I don't have a problem if two guys drop their gloves and bing-bing. It's a very, very emotionally intense, in-your-face kind of game and I think there's going to be eruptions from time to time."
John Grisdale is a former NHL player with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks whose 346 penalty minutes in 250 career games during the 1970s indicate he wasn't adverse to rough play.
Now the president of the B.C. Hockey League, which oversees Junior A hockey for the province, Grisdale believes the NHL has done a good job trying to clamp down on unruly player behavior.
"I think the game has changed quite a bit and I think it's changed for the better," he said, adding that in a game that's as emotional and reactionary as hockey, fighting will probably always have a place.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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