BY DEREK CARSON – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
If you are fed up with fighting in hockey and the goon style of play in the NHL, you should direct your frustration at the person who indirectly gave rise to the role of the enforcer – Wayne Gretzky.
The concept of a skilled elite player did not start with Gretzky. However, what did start with Gretzky, and has continued ever since, is the concept of a skilled elite player who needs a protector. Gretzky was the first.
He was the first superstar who had a dedicated teammate to ensure he wasn’t consistently roughed up by the opposing team, most famously Dave Semenko and Marty McSorley.
Before Gretzky, superstars were left unprotected and had to mix it up when the opposing team tried to impose their will. Men like Gordie Howe, Maurice Richard, Bobby Hull, Phil Esposito, Bobby Orr had to do it themselves. If you went into the corner with Howe, you didn’t go back a second time.
For Richard or Hull or Esposito to be able to display their incredible puck handling or goal scoring abilities, they didn’t need a dedicated bodyguard ready to fight for them should anyone have the audacity to drive them into the boards or give them a nice hard cross-check. They were superstars who stood up for themselves, and that’s part of what made them so great.
There’s no question that we need to get rid of hockey’s goon element, but while we do that we need to redefine the meaning of a superstar to be a complete (and I mean COMPLETE) player.
Hockey’s a rough sport. If you can’t handle that, you shouldn’t be playing in the pros. The goons would have no place in hockey if today’s “superstar” could take care of himself, if they were modeled after Howe or Orr or Richard, instead of Gretzky.
So the next time some lumbering giant who can barely skate starts a fight in order to send a message of protection for his team’s “superstar”, don’t blame the player. Blame Gretzky.