Violence in Hockey

In Drewe's article, titled "Violence in Sport: Just Part of the Game?" I disagree with the aspects of fighting argued in the article. The first argument for fighting in hockey is that it is a way to "release anger." This anger is typically from losing. For one I do not feel fighting is the answer to releasing anger. Another argument is the "motivational aspect of fighting." Meaning that fighting gets the crowd and your teammates "pumped" while it does indeed do this, I feel there are other ways to getting the team pumped besides risking extreme injuries and losing moral values. Hockey is still rough and a contact sport, the speed and aggressiveness should allow the team to be pumped enough and release enough anger. An intentional act of violence does not have to be committed.
Considering the long hockey sticks, extremely hard ice and puck, blades on the bottom of their skates, someone could get seriously hurt or fatalities could even occur when resorting to fighting.These serious injuries that come from fighting are just not worth releasing your anger, or motivating your team. The article even talks about seeing less fighting when play-off time comes around. This is because the teams are taking these games more serious, and do not need the penalty of fighting and risk losing the game. The teams should have this same attitude during regular season. This just highlights our societies importance of winning at all costs. The anger of losing is enough to make an athlete lose moral principals and start a violent fight on the rink. When it is play-off time, time to WIN, athletes fear risking the game over fighting, however still participate in violent acts such as, taking the other team's star player out of the game. Fighting breaks both written and unwritten rules of sport. A moral standard should be held by athletes. They should focus on being role models. They already typically have healthy bodies, they should take this healthy lifestyle and apply it to all aspects of life, and focus on being an all around good person. Some argued that a hockey game with no fighting would attract less of a crowd. However, I agree with Wayne Gretzski's counter argument that perhaps an analysis should be done on those who do not watch it for the violence, who do not appreciate the fighting, but instead like the game, and want their kids to be able to watch it also. The article mentions the root word of competition, com-petito, which means "striving together." Perhaps we, as a society, should lose our "win at all cost" attitude that we have turned "competition" into, and focus on the origin, of striving together to achieve excellence.