Monday Meh, Winter Classic Edition

New Year's was a sad day for the Boston Bruins after their loss to the Montreal Canadiens in this season's Winter Classic. That's a hockey game, in case you don't know. I'm not judging. I'm only judging myself here, because as an avowed pacifist and someone who's criticized the excesses of professional sports, my guilty little (former) secret is that I like ice hockey. And I'm not entirely sure why.

Of course, hockey is superior to American football in many ways. It's more athletic. Hockey players play a long season - 82 games in regular NHL season play, compared with 16 for the NFL season. Hockey's fast pace is more appealing, too. It's the fights, though, that leave me most uneasy with my affection for the game and the players.

It's hard to defend some fights as justified while others are dirty, but that's pretty much how it goes. Defenders of the fisticuffs that break out during games will say that fighting is a means by which hockey players police each other, by letting things get a little out of control, safety and sanity is maintained:

 Conducted honorably, between combatants who understand that physical punishment is the consequence of unacceptable behavior, it’s a relatively safe, constrained and consistent form for players to hold each other accountable. It’s a grassroots solution for a gap that can’t ever be filled by referees or league authorities.

There are certain players, certain rivalries that can be counted upon to provoke this sort of "accountability," and I can pretty much overook the occasional donnybrook because I get pulled in by the excitement of cheering on "my" team, through good times and bad. It's a distraction, a diversion, and, for me, at least, a harmless foray into fandom. For the most part, though, witnessing a fight on the ice makes me uncomfortable. 

But not as uncomfortable as losing to the Canadiens on home ice . . . . Grrrrrr!