"Something was missing from the Carolina Hurricanes' preseason game last Friday, something that's typically a staple of any preseason game: There wasn't a single fight. There was one scuffle, after a hard hit by Nashville Predators defenseman Francis Bouillon on Jussi Jokinen, but that was it. No fights, and not a single neuron anywhere in my nostalgia ganglia so much as twitched. And a preseason game is the one time fighting makes sense: Young bucks, fighting for jobs, desperately trying to impress skeptical coaches...Go ahead! Slug it out! Show who's tougher! If we can get through a preseason game without a fight, and nary a soul expresses any dismay at the lack thereof, can't the NHL do without fighting for good? Absolutely it can. I have been on the fence when it comes to fighting in the NHL, finding it more difficult to justify with each passing season but unwilling to break with tradition entirely. No more. Go ahead. Call me a sissy. Scoff that I don't understand hockey. Tell me that I should leave The Great Canadian Game Alone. But I'm not. And I do. And I love that game, but I'd just as soon do without the pointless pugilism, thank you very much. Hockey rationale? The Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in 2006 without a designated enforcer after Jesse Boulerice was traded to St. Louis. They even had an official "no fighting" policy and seemed to survive. Just as the NHL has (finally) started to take predatory hits to the head out of the game, there's no reason to stop halfway. The Neanderthals who exert far too much influence on hockey stonewalled that long-overdue move, using all the same excuses they trot out to defend fighting. And here's the thing: I was once one of them." http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/29/708430/fighting-in-the-nhl-unnecessary.html
