Remember the dumb-ass who occasionally showed up in your class at college? There on an athletic scholarship of some sort. Generally never mistaken for the sharpest tool in the shed. Millionaire by the age of twenty two, thanks to his skill at knocking down some other dumb-ass who went to some other college on an athletic scholarship.
In case you missed it, there's a move afoot in the NHL to save the dumb-ass from concussions. A concussion is what you sometimes end up with when you run into some other dumb-ass at high speed. Get concussed often enough, and it's goodbye career, hello real world.
In the real world, the millionaire dumb-ass might have to get a real job. There's a reason society rewards these guys the way it does, and the reason has been fairly consistent since at least the time of the Roman gladiators. We want to see the Christians fighting the lions to the death. We want to see the bull gore the matador. We want to be entertained. In return for the entertainment we put the gladiator on a pedestal. We shower him with riches and privileges. In return, the gladiator takes some risks.
Some modern gladiators, Ayrton Senna, Bill Masterton, Dale Earnhardt among them, have paid the ultimate price. While we mourn their passing, we recognize that the possibility of their demise was an implicit part of the bargain they made when they chose their respective games. If the gladiator becomes convinced that the risks no longer justify the rewards in his chosen profession, let him do something else.
There's a few guys in the NHL who want to change the rules. They want the gladiators' rewards but don't want the risks. Don Cherry was right in calling them hypocrites. Once we take fighting and body-checking out of professional hockey, what's left?
Six hundred over-paid figure skaters.
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