QMJHL set to eliminate fighting from the sport

A 15 minute penalty for fighting!?! These ideas are crazy!

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
QMJHL set to eliminate fighting from the sport
Zuma Press

For better or worse, the NHL just isn't the way it used to be.

There's no denying the speed and skill on display in today's game, but the traditionalist in me wishes we could go back in time and bring back some of the physicality and intimidation of the past. I might sound like a bit of a dinosaur, but there's nothing quite like a big hit or a good scrap to change the momentum or fire the boys up. To me that's a part of the game that I never want to see go away.

Well... leave it up to the QMJHL to try to scrub physicality from the sport entirely. The Quebec based junior hockey league was proposed banning fighting altogether in the past, but hasn't had the full support of the league's members in order to change its rules regarding fighting. 

“Whether we ban fighting outright or simply impose stricter penalties for fighting, those were the elements that made our debate very nuanced today,” said QMJHL commissioner Gilles Courteau said earlier this year. Now though, there's a vote on the table to no eliminate fighting per se, but to make the infractions against fighting so strict that it will essentially remove it entirely.

TSN's Rick Westhead reports that while the league voted against a 15 minute major penalty for fighting, it's still possible that big changes are coming to the QMJHL's fighting penalties. The reason? Money... of course.

Check it out:





That's some dirty, dirty, dirty politics. Promising money and then pulling it back unless the league does what you want? There's a word for that and I believe it's called "extortion". Just another day in the life of a politician...

And here are the official new rules: