Thursday, November 15, 2007
Arts & Hockey Daily
We've been pointing to David Staples' The Cult of Hockey a lot recently. And not that I usually consider these things explicitly, but he's earned it. To borrow one of Dennis' characteristically apt baseball analogies, he stepped into the batter's box that is the O**ogosphere, took a couple of fastballs at his ear, then stood up and resumed crowding the plate.
I made note here on the site of the interesting confluence between Saturday night's near miss and Monday's HHOF induction of Messier. I found there to be -- and I'm being charitable here -- an apparent contradiction between celebrating Messier's legacy of violence and intimidation on the one hand, and calling for the hangman's noose for Robyn Regehr on the other. And since Staples has (to date!) been eager to engage, I challenged him directly on his site. My intent was not to point and scream "Hypocrite!" -- it was to elicit a thoughtful response.
Anyway, he delivered. I'm not saying he squared the circle, because I don't think that's possible, but it was a good piece. I don't think I could excerpt a paragraph that would fairly show what he was saying; read the whole thing.
The one theme in his post that I want to address a bit further is the idea that NHL hockey doesn't have to be this way. In the comments to previous posts, both Andy and Rod were also extremely adamant that you could start adminstering very harsh punishment for acts such as Regehr's without changing the nature of the game; indeed, without discouraging physical play at all.
I am equally certain that this is quite incorrect (setting aside whether or not it would be desirable). Since Staples brought out Machiavelli's prince, I feel licensed to go literary as well. This is an excerpt from G.K. Chesterton's 1929 work The Thing. He's talking about reforming social institutions, but I think there's lessons here if you're interested in reforming the way the NHL does its disciplinary business (hey, the NHL very nearly is a social institution here):
I considered italicizing some sentences there, but I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
I found this in a very interesting, very even-handed (and very long) essay by Megan McArdle that is broadly about this same thing: being "humble about [your] ability to imagine the subtle results of big policy changes".
Anyway, back to hockey. And please bookmark The Cult of Hockey, and visit regularly; then Mr. Staples won't feel the need to excerpt entire posts into our comment threads to be sure that they'll get read. Regular less-eye-glazing posting to resume shortly.
I made note here on the site of the interesting confluence between Saturday night's near miss and Monday's HHOF induction of Messier. I found there to be -- and I'm being charitable here -- an apparent contradiction between celebrating Messier's legacy of violence and intimidation on the one hand, and calling for the hangman's noose for Robyn Regehr on the other. And since Staples has (to date!) been eager to engage, I challenged him directly on his site. My intent was not to point and scream "Hypocrite!" -- it was to elicit a thoughtful response.
Anyway, he delivered. I'm not saying he squared the circle, because I don't think that's possible, but it was a good piece. I don't think I could excerpt a paragraph that would fairly show what he was saying; read the whole thing.
The one theme in his post that I want to address a bit further is the idea that NHL hockey doesn't have to be this way. In the comments to previous posts, both Andy and Rod were also extremely adamant that you could start adminstering very harsh punishment for acts such as Regehr's without changing the nature of the game; indeed, without discouraging physical play at all.
I am equally certain that this is quite incorrect (setting aside whether or not it would be desirable). Since Staples brought out Machiavelli's prince, I feel licensed to go literary as well. This is an excerpt from G.K. Chesterton's 1929 work The Thing. He's talking about reforming social institutions, but I think there's lessons here if you're interested in reforming the way the NHL does its disciplinary business (hey, the NHL very nearly is a social institution here):
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.
I considered italicizing some sentences there, but I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
I found this in a very interesting, very even-handed (and very long) essay by Megan McArdle that is broadly about this same thing: being "humble about [your] ability to imagine the subtle results of big policy changes".
Three well-meaning reformers who were genuinely, sincerely incapable of imagining that their changes would wreak such institutional havoc. Three sets of utterly logical and convincing, and wrong, arguments about how people would behave after a major change.
Anyway, back to hockey. And please bookmark The Cult of Hockey, and visit regularly; then Mr. Staples won't feel the need to excerpt entire posts into our comment threads to be sure that they'll get read. Regular less-eye-glazing posting to resume shortly.
# posted by Matt @ 10:32 am 
Comments:
I'm as big a fan as Chesterton as the next guy (probably more than the next guy, actually, since he has unfortunately become less popular as the years go by), but to bring that out as your argument is just goofy. I gave you two actual examples in those old posts (the NFL and the CIS), and you provide an appeal to authority? Here's a link to the changes to the NFL's rules over the past hundred or so years. Now, do you notice a lack of physicality when you watch NFL games? Do you think bringing in tougher penalties and new rules has taken away from the game of football?
In the comments to previous posts, both Andy and Rod were also extremely adamant that you could start adminstering very harsh punishment for acts such as Regehr's without changing the nature of the game; indeed, without discouraging physical play at all.
No, that's not what I said. I said that administering harsh punishments would change the nature of the game, in terms of making it less dangerous. I just don't buy your argument that it would fundamentally change the nature of the game in terms of making it less physical, your "overall level of physical play would go down" assertion. It's a distinction that I believe can be made. I think it's possible to differentiate between dangerous acts and non-dangerous acts, and to discourage dangerous acts while encouraging physical play. So do you, really, otherwise I would have seen a post advocating the abolishment of plenty of NHL rules. I mean, why not just let them swing sticks at each other's heads?
Looking at this again, I'm thinking the problem is that we have different definitions of "physical play." I'm seeing your point more now.
Now, do you notice a lack of physicality when you watch NFL games?
I don't think your football argument works. Physical contact is integral to the game. You can't play football without guys smashing into one another, it's the nature of the game. If you take away physical contact, you're no longer playing football, you're playing something else.
The same isn't true for hockey. You can quite easily play hockey with very little physical contact. See women's hockey. See the guys playing out on the pond. See Olympic hockey. You can come up with dozens of examples hockey be played with contact, but you can't come up with one for football. So the comparison, in my opinion, is ridiculous.
But having said that, you're CIS example is great. But I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what exactly Matt is arguing, so I can't say whether it's an argument winner or not.
A few things:
** I think we are probably thinking about "physical play" in two different ways, because I don't see how the statement could be argued otherwise.
Analogy: the government quintuples fines (and enforcement capability) for speeding. Clearly we'd see less speeding, but I would also suggest that many people who used to drive at the speed limit would now drive 5-10 km/h below it.
Also, there are players in the NHL with jobs precisely because they have no respect for other players, and are a constant threat to cross the line. However, 95+% of the physical confrontations these players get in are totally normal and legal. If Matt Cooke gets run out of the league, his replacement is a lot less likely to cripple someone, but also less likely to hit as much, period, as Cooke.
So, I understand the distinction between dangerous and non-dangerous acts, but to a great extent, they still go hand-in-hand.
**Agreed with McLea on why the NFL comparison doesn't work. I don't have a great answer for the CIS comparison, but I do have a few thoughts:
- While you are a man of great integrity and observational powers, Andy, I'm not willing to just take your word for it that a Golden Bears game is more physical than your average NHL game
- It is less of a culture shock to impose these stricter penalties in CIS, because (properly) there is less of a Whatever It Takes To Win culture there than in NHL (or AHL or even WHL). Coaches aren't fired as readily; players aren't concerned about getting drafted or promoted or re-signed. As Staples did a nice job of outlining, the extra violence comes from a desperation to win, because it works.
- Are those penalties (aside from fighting) really that much stricter, anyway? And how often do they hand out these mandatory suspensions?
- The CIS is much less popular than major junior, even though virtually everyone who follows both says that the average skill level is higher in CIS (and why wouldn't it be, when so many of the players came from the CHL).
**The GKC excerpt is not an argument against any change, but it probably is one in favour of slow (or glacial) change assuming that it *is* important that the existing hard-assed culture of NHL hockey is maintained. The assumption that the present disciplinary framework is the way it is because, roughly, "Colin Campbell and the GMs are neanderthals who are too stupid to realize that the NHL would be just as great if they handed out a lot more stiff suspensions", is a dangerous conceit, even if it seems plenty obvious that that is indeed the case.
You can't play football without guys smashing into one another, it's the nature of the game. If you take away physical contact, you're no longer playing football, you're playing something else.
So two-hand touch football isn't football? Flag football isn't football? You can play plenty of varieties of football and still call it football. But that's a side point.
While you are a man of great integrity and observational powers, Andy, I'm not willing to just take your word for it that a Golden Bears game is more physical than your average NHL game
Come with me to one, two, three or four. The only time I see the same amount of body checking in the NHL is playoff time.
If you bring in harsh penalties, will it tone down the physical play in the NHL?
I suspect it would, but being a fan of skill, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.
No, we don't want to see Euro-style, no-hit hockey in the NHL, but the hockey of the 1980s period, which I would contend -- but can't prove -- had less physical play than today's game was extremely thrilling hockey (especially for Oilers fans, of course.).
Would harsher penalties actually work to lessen violent play?
I think so, so long as players were missing more games and losing their own money, and so long as the penalties within the games were also increased, they would have an impact.
But what about Shero's philosophy that the more you foul, the more you get away with fouls, and the more you benefit, because the refs simply can't catch everything?
This philosophy only works when refs and the league office are extremely permissive, and that's the way the NHL was in the early 1970s. Violence was "in" back then, seen as an integral part of selling the game to the U.S.
My final point (for now): there's also something to be said for doing the right thing here, whether it's pragmatic or not, and the right thing is to severely punish players who engage in such dangerous and violent tactics, not merely slap them on the wrist. The penalty must fit the dangerous crime, and right now they don't come close to doing so in the NHL.
To stick with Matt's analogy (which I very much enjoyed) from Chesterton about the fence across the road, right now the fence -- the violence -- is there for a number of reasons: Violence is thrilling, violence sells hockey, violence helps violent players get ahead, violence helps coaches who espouse violence win games.
But are those reasons very good ones for keeping that fence in place?
I'm not convinced that is the case.
Time to take the fence down from the road, and let the Ales Hemskys and Daymond Langkows of the world, the skilled players, drive on though.
So two-hand touch football isn't football? Flag football isn't football?
So if we're going to accept flag football as a form of football, what exactly is your point? That the NFL implemented all these rules on head shots, and look, guys are still tackling each other? I'm not sure I'm following.
The NFL can implement all the safety minded rules in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that you necessarily have to tackle an opposing player to get him down. Even at the highest level of hockey, there are non violent methods to remove someone from the puck. That isn't true in football. If you want to make a play, you have to hit a guy. Period.
So again, the comparison is absurd.
I understand the distinction between dangerous and non-dangerous acts, but to a great extent, they still go hand-in-hand.
The question is: to what extent? To me, there’s a clear distinction to be made between premeditated and deliberate acts like Bertuzzi’s assault on Moore (on the extreme end) or Regher’s cross-check on Hemsky.
Maybe the problem is you see the Regher hit as a “battle for the puck gone bad” instead of deliberate act of violence.
Furthermore, there’s a number of problems with the premise that stiffer sentences for violent offenses would lead to a decrease in physical play (assuming I'm paraphrasing correctly here). For one, is there any reason to assume that the decrease in physical play would be extensive enough to seriously dampen the quality of the product? After all, I think we can agree that it would take a extreme amount of rule changes to cause the level of physical play to decline to say, that of women's hockey (where the rules expressly forbid physical play). Hockey, despite what mclea says, is an inherently physical game. There’s simply no way to rule out that aspect altogether (women’s hockey, despite the prohibition on bodychecking, still features incidental collisions and physical puck battles).
The other main one in my view is that perhaps reducing physicality for player safety isn’t necessarily a bad tradeoff to make. The underlying assumption on Matt’s part seems to be that the “Whatever It Takes To Win culture” is indispensable. Me, I can’t help think that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to curb the attitude that causing serious physical harm to another human being is necessary to success in a sporting event.
Mclea, I think you're misunderstanding Andy's point. He said that the NFL put in harsher rules on the headshots and it hasn't taken away from the physicality of the games. So similarly the NHL should be able to do the same (consistently) and have similar success without taking away considerably from the physicality on the ice.
I fail to see the disagreement.
Nah, I think McLea understood it perfectly. The guy has got to be tackled, or blocked, anyway. Not so in the NHL.
So if we're going to accept flag football as a form of football, what exactly is your point? That the NFL implemented all these rules on head shots, and look, guys are still tackling each other? I'm not sure I'm following.
You said, "You can't play football without guys smashing into one another, it's the nature of the game." That is in fact wrong, as I just showed. You can say the NFL requires/chooses to have physical contact, but no one disagrees with that. There's nothing else to it besides that. It has nothing to do with the other points. Hence, side point. You said, "but you can't come up with one for football. So the comparison, in my opinion, is ridiculous" I did come up with one. I actually came up with two.
As to the broader point, I think Uni summed it up pretty well. There is physical contact in the NFL. It doesn't need to be there. They could play two-hand touch football or flag football, and it would still be football. Maybe not as interesting to us (or maybe more) but still football. What they do have is some physical contact that is allowed, and some that is forbidden. Legal physical contact is encouraged, illegal physical contact is punished. Modifying the rules and forbidding dangerous things doesn't discourage the players from doing the other physical things they are allowed to do, and it doesn't make me think the quality and quantity of physical play has disappeared or gone down. Same goes for hockey and the NHL.
Physical contact is not "allowed" or "encouraged" by the NFL, it is *required* by the rules -- mandated. You cannot play the game without tackling the other guy. That's why the comparison doesn't work.
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I'm as big a fan as Chesterton as the next guy (probably more than the next guy, actually, since he has unfortunately become less popular as the years go by), but to bring that out as your argument is just goofy. I gave you two actual examples in those old posts (the NFL and the CIS), and you provide an appeal to authority? Here's a link to the changes to the NFL's rules over the past hundred or so years. Now, do you notice a lack of physicality when you watch NFL games? Do you think bringing in tougher penalties and new rules has taken away from the game of football?
In the comments to previous posts, both Andy and Rod were also extremely adamant that you could start adminstering very harsh punishment for acts such as Regehr's without changing the nature of the game; indeed, without discouraging physical play at all.
No, that's not what I said. I said that administering harsh punishments would change the nature of the game, in terms of making it less dangerous. I just don't buy your argument that it would fundamentally change the nature of the game in terms of making it less physical, your "overall level of physical play would go down" assertion. It's a distinction that I believe can be made. I think it's possible to differentiate between dangerous acts and non-dangerous acts, and to discourage dangerous acts while encouraging physical play. So do you, really, otherwise I would have seen a post advocating the abolishment of plenty of NHL rules. I mean, why not just let them swing sticks at each other's heads?
Looking at this again, I'm thinking the problem is that we have different definitions of "physical play." I'm seeing your point more now.
Now, do you notice a lack of physicality when you watch NFL games?
I don't think your football argument works. Physical contact is integral to the game. You can't play football without guys smashing into one another, it's the nature of the game. If you take away physical contact, you're no longer playing football, you're playing something else.
The same isn't true for hockey. You can quite easily play hockey with very little physical contact. See women's hockey. See the guys playing out on the pond. See Olympic hockey. You can come up with dozens of examples hockey be played with contact, but you can't come up with one for football. So the comparison, in my opinion, is ridiculous.
But having said that, you're CIS example is great. But I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what exactly Matt is arguing, so I can't say whether it's an argument winner or not.
A few things:
** I think we are probably thinking about "physical play" in two different ways, because I don't see how the statement could be argued otherwise.
Analogy: the government quintuples fines (and enforcement capability) for speeding. Clearly we'd see less speeding, but I would also suggest that many people who used to drive at the speed limit would now drive 5-10 km/h below it.
Also, there are players in the NHL with jobs precisely because they have no respect for other players, and are a constant threat to cross the line. However, 95+% of the physical confrontations these players get in are totally normal and legal. If Matt Cooke gets run out of the league, his replacement is a lot less likely to cripple someone, but also less likely to hit as much, period, as Cooke.
So, I understand the distinction between dangerous and non-dangerous acts, but to a great extent, they still go hand-in-hand.
**Agreed with McLea on why the NFL comparison doesn't work. I don't have a great answer for the CIS comparison, but I do have a few thoughts:
- While you are a man of great integrity and observational powers, Andy, I'm not willing to just take your word for it that a Golden Bears game is more physical than your average NHL game
- It is less of a culture shock to impose these stricter penalties in CIS, because (properly) there is less of a Whatever It Takes To Win culture there than in NHL (or AHL or even WHL). Coaches aren't fired as readily; players aren't concerned about getting drafted or promoted or re-signed. As Staples did a nice job of outlining, the extra violence comes from a desperation to win, because it works.
- Are those penalties (aside from fighting) really that much stricter, anyway? And how often do they hand out these mandatory suspensions?
- The CIS is much less popular than major junior, even though virtually everyone who follows both says that the average skill level is higher in CIS (and why wouldn't it be, when so many of the players came from the CHL).
**The GKC excerpt is not an argument against any change, but it probably is one in favour of slow (or glacial) change assuming that it *is* important that the existing hard-assed culture of NHL hockey is maintained. The assumption that the present disciplinary framework is the way it is because, roughly, "Colin Campbell and the GMs are neanderthals who are too stupid to realize that the NHL would be just as great if they handed out a lot more stiff suspensions", is a dangerous conceit, even if it seems plenty obvious that that is indeed the case.
# posted by 
: November 15, 2007 1:40 pm
: November 15, 2007 1:40 pm You can't play football without guys smashing into one another, it's the nature of the game. If you take away physical contact, you're no longer playing football, you're playing something else.
So two-hand touch football isn't football? Flag football isn't football? You can play plenty of varieties of football and still call it football. But that's a side point.
While you are a man of great integrity and observational powers, Andy, I'm not willing to just take your word for it that a Golden Bears game is more physical than your average NHL game
Come with me to one, two, three or four. The only time I see the same amount of body checking in the NHL is playoff time.
If you bring in harsh penalties, will it tone down the physical play in the NHL?
I suspect it would, but being a fan of skill, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.
No, we don't want to see Euro-style, no-hit hockey in the NHL, but the hockey of the 1980s period, which I would contend -- but can't prove -- had less physical play than today's game was extremely thrilling hockey (especially for Oilers fans, of course.).
Would harsher penalties actually work to lessen violent play?
I think so, so long as players were missing more games and losing their own money, and so long as the penalties within the games were also increased, they would have an impact.
But what about Shero's philosophy that the more you foul, the more you get away with fouls, and the more you benefit, because the refs simply can't catch everything?
This philosophy only works when refs and the league office are extremely permissive, and that's the way the NHL was in the early 1970s. Violence was "in" back then, seen as an integral part of selling the game to the U.S.
My final point (for now): there's also something to be said for doing the right thing here, whether it's pragmatic or not, and the right thing is to severely punish players who engage in such dangerous and violent tactics, not merely slap them on the wrist. The penalty must fit the dangerous crime, and right now they don't come close to doing so in the NHL.
To stick with Matt's analogy (which I very much enjoyed) from Chesterton about the fence across the road, right now the fence -- the violence -- is there for a number of reasons: Violence is thrilling, violence sells hockey, violence helps violent players get ahead, violence helps coaches who espouse violence win games.
But are those reasons very good ones for keeping that fence in place?
I'm not convinced that is the case.
Time to take the fence down from the road, and let the Ales Hemskys and Daymond Langkows of the world, the skilled players, drive on though.
So two-hand touch football isn't football? Flag football isn't football?
So if we're going to accept flag football as a form of football, what exactly is your point? That the NFL implemented all these rules on head shots, and look, guys are still tackling each other? I'm not sure I'm following.
The NFL can implement all the safety minded rules in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that you necessarily have to tackle an opposing player to get him down. Even at the highest level of hockey, there are non violent methods to remove someone from the puck. That isn't true in football. If you want to make a play, you have to hit a guy. Period.
So again, the comparison is absurd.
I understand the distinction between dangerous and non-dangerous acts, but to a great extent, they still go hand-in-hand.
The question is: to what extent? To me, there’s a clear distinction to be made between premeditated and deliberate acts like Bertuzzi’s assault on Moore (on the extreme end) or Regher’s cross-check on Hemsky.
Maybe the problem is you see the Regher hit as a “battle for the puck gone bad” instead of deliberate act of violence.
Furthermore, there’s a number of problems with the premise that stiffer sentences for violent offenses would lead to a decrease in physical play (assuming I'm paraphrasing correctly here). For one, is there any reason to assume that the decrease in physical play would be extensive enough to seriously dampen the quality of the product? After all, I think we can agree that it would take a extreme amount of rule changes to cause the level of physical play to decline to say, that of women's hockey (where the rules expressly forbid physical play). Hockey, despite what mclea says, is an inherently physical game. There’s simply no way to rule out that aspect altogether (women’s hockey, despite the prohibition on bodychecking, still features incidental collisions and physical puck battles).
The other main one in my view is that perhaps reducing physicality for player safety isn’t necessarily a bad tradeoff to make. The underlying assumption on Matt’s part seems to be that the “Whatever It Takes To Win culture” is indispensable. Me, I can’t help think that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to curb the attitude that causing serious physical harm to another human being is necessary to success in a sporting event.
Mclea, I think you're misunderstanding Andy's point. He said that the NFL put in harsher rules on the headshots and it hasn't taken away from the physicality of the games. So similarly the NHL should be able to do the same (consistently) and have similar success without taking away considerably from the physicality on the ice.
I fail to see the disagreement.
# posted by : November 15, 2007 8:48 pm
: November 15, 2007 8:48 pm Nah, I think McLea understood it perfectly. The guy has got to be tackled, or blocked, anyway. Not so in the NHL.
# posted by : November 15, 2007 8:55 pm
: November 15, 2007 8:55 pm So if we're going to accept flag football as a form of football, what exactly is your point? That the NFL implemented all these rules on head shots, and look, guys are still tackling each other? I'm not sure I'm following.
You said, "You can't play football without guys smashing into one another, it's the nature of the game." That is in fact wrong, as I just showed. You can say the NFL requires/chooses to have physical contact, but no one disagrees with that. There's nothing else to it besides that. It has nothing to do with the other points. Hence, side point. You said, "but you can't come up with one for football. So the comparison, in my opinion, is ridiculous" I did come up with one. I actually came up with two.
As to the broader point, I think Uni summed it up pretty well. There is physical contact in the NFL. It doesn't need to be there. They could play two-hand touch football or flag football, and it would still be football. Maybe not as interesting to us (or maybe more) but still football. What they do have is some physical contact that is allowed, and some that is forbidden. Legal physical contact is encouraged, illegal physical contact is punished. Modifying the rules and forbidding dangerous things doesn't discourage the players from doing the other physical things they are allowed to do, and it doesn't make me think the quality and quantity of physical play has disappeared or gone down. Same goes for hockey and the NHL.
Physical contact is not "allowed" or "encouraged" by the NFL, it is *required* by the rules -- mandated. You cannot play the game without tackling the other guy. That's why the comparison doesn't work.
# posted by : November 16, 2007 12:05 pm
: November 16, 2007 12:05 pm Post a Comment
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