Penguins Update: A Primer on Fighting and Physical Play

This piece was originally intended as a response to a comment posted by Mike concerning a rise in fighting majors in 2019-20 following several seasons of decline, not to mention the importance of physical play in today’s game. Which started me on a ramble. Always dangerous.

So, Mike, this one’s for you.

For a while it appeared as if fighting in hockey was going to die a natural and spontaneous death…especially after our Penguins won back-to-back Cups without employing anyone remotely resembling a heavyweight. Then the Capitals won the Cup in 2018, in part, by embracing a physical style. The equally muscular Blues followed suit last season, while speed-oriented teams like Toronto and Carolina fell short.

Yes, I do think it reinforces the notion that there will always be a place for physical play (and physical teams) in the sport. Since the two generally go hand-in-hand, I’m going to shift the focus to fighting for a bit.

To my eyes, hockey appears to be returning to its pre-1970s roots, which is good for the sport and the collective welfare of the players. With the notable exception of the “Big, Bad Bruins” and the equally nasty Blues, teams of that era generally carried a “policeman” or two using the vernacular of the day…usually a forward and a defenseman…to protect their teammates and occasionally stir up a little mayhem of their own.

The Pens had the two Bryans…Hextall and “Bugsy” Watson. Fights generally weren’t premeditated or staged, but were more of the “heat of the moment” variety, which is what we’re seeing more of these days. Often they involved guys who weren’t fighters but rather honest players standing up for themselves and/or protecting their patch of ice.

Then the Philadelphia Flyers came along. In an effort to shield themselves against the Bruins and Blues, they loaded up with a veritable rogue’s gallery of thugs…Dave “the Hammer” Schultz, Bob “Hound” Kelly, Andre “Moose” Dupont and Don “Big Bird” Saleski…not to mention second-tier toughies like Gary Dornhoefer, Ross Lonsberry and Ed Van Impe. Suddenly, teams that carried only one or two tough guys were at an extreme disadvantage.

The Flyers were downright mean. They’d target your stars for abuse and dare you to do something about it. Most of the old-school tough guys like Hextall and Watson were overwhelmed. To digress, prior to the Flyers’ emergence linesmen were instructed to break up scuffles at the earliest opportunity. More often than not, fights in the pre-“Broad Street Bullies” era were brief skirmishes rather than knock-down, drag ‘em out affairs, where each combatant maybe threw a punch or two before they were separated.

Again, that changed with the Flyers. Schultz would hook on to a foe’s jersey with his left hand…in the beginning often against smaller and inferior opponents…and proceed to batter them with his right (hence the nickname “Hammer”). He was much like the Capitals’ present-day marauder Tom Wilson in that regard…a bully in the truest sense.

And make no mistake, Schultz was very effective…and intimidating. His one-sided pummeling of the Rangers’ much larger (albeit pacifist) defenseman Dale Rolfe during the 1974 playoffs arguably served as the spring board for the Flyers’ first Cup run.

It sent other teams scurrying to find guys who could protect their stars. Within a couple of years, the Pens added rough-and-tumble types like Bob “Battleship” Kelly, Steve Durbano, Bob Paradise, Colin Campbell, Dennis Owchar and Harvey Bennett. Suddenly, we could fight fire with fire.

An arms race ensued. Pretty soon you had guys arriving on the scene like Toronto’s Kurt Walker, whose sole purpose was to fight. Thus, the modern “heavyweight” was born.

This led to a further escalation that spanned nearly four decades. During the ’80s, Detroit featured the infamous “Bruise Brothers,” Bob Probert and Joey Kocur, perhaps the most lethal pair of fighters ever to skate for one team. “Joey KO’s” brutal knockout of then-reigning heavyweight champ and future Pen Jim Kyte was particularly chilling.

However, the Flyers remained the poster-team for toughness. Their 1988-89 squad that defeated us in the playoffs featured such notable brawlers as Dave Brown (a huge mallet-fisted lefty…truly fearsome), Craig Berube, Rick Tocchet, Scott Mellanby, Jay Wells, Terry Carkner, Jeff Chychrun, Al Secord and Don Nachbaur. To say nothing of monsters like Tim Kerr and Kjell Samuelsson and combative goalie Ron Hextall (Bryan’s son).

No wonder visiting teams got the “Philly Flu” when they visited the old Spectrum…literally a den of horrors.

As Pens color man Phil Bourque recalled, “When we went to the Spectrum, as much as you wanted to believe you were going to win, you just knew something bad was going to happen. You had the feeling you were going to get beat up, and not just on the scoreboard. They never took their foot off the gas pedal. They kept hammering us. It wasn’t enough to rub our noses in it, they grabbed us by the hair on the back of our heads and shoved our faces into the pile.”

Fighting reached its zenith in the first decade of the 2000s. By then “staged” fights were in vogue. Each team would send out its heavyweight and they’d agree to fight so neither would receive an instigator penalty. Then they’d drop the gloves and slug it out, often immediately following a face-off. Everyone knew it was coming. It was almost as if someone called time out and said, “Okay let’s get this over with and get on with the game.”

Then three well-known enforcers, Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard and Rick Rypien died during the summer of 2011, altering the landscape on fighting. Around the same time, a heightened awareness about the potentially crippling effects of concussions and other brain conditions such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy began to emerge.

Although the NHL enacted no new rules to curb fighting, the tragic and untimely deaths essentially put an end to the madness. Gradually, over the next several seasons a deescalation occurred as teams divested themselves of heavyweights. Which led to a precipitous decline in fighting as Mike so duly noted.

On a personal level, I’ve always enjoyed the physical aspect of hockey…including fighting. But as the frequency of fights has decreased over the past several seasons, I confess I don’t miss it. Hockey’s a beautiful and often breathtaking sport, combining supreme athleticism and passion with an incredible degree of skill, agility, speed and grace.

Will there always be a place for physical play in hockey? As long as two or more players engage in battles to possess a chunk of vulcanized rubber…yes. While quickness and speed can mitigate to a degree, size does matter. If you have two guys of equal ability involved in a scrum, the bigger, stronger guy is going to win his share of battles.

It’s an element I wish our Pens had more of. Especially come playoff time, when refs tend to tuck their whistles in their pockets and attempted homicides are often overlooked.

Anyway, my 10-cent ramble for what it’s worth. Mike…that’ll teach you to ask for my opinion…lol.