Ugly injury in AHL has people calling for the end of fighting in hockey

What’s your call? Does fighting still have a place in the game or is it time we get rid of it?

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Ugly injury in AHL has people calling for the end of fighting in hockey
Zuma Press

In case you missed it earlier this week, AHL forward Kale Kessy was stretchered off the ice unconscious after hitting his head on the ice after a fight with Derek Sheppard.

It was an ugly scene:



Thankfully, Kessy will be okay thanks in large part to the medical staff who managed to get to him almost immediately. 

Still, the Kessy injury and the scary visuals from his fight with Sheppard are prompting some media analysts calling for the end of fighting in hockey. Among them is Ken Campbell, editor in chief of The Hockey News. Campbell has long been a critic of fighting and has made no secret that he thinks it should be abolished from the sport.

Check out some of these comments from Campbell in an article titled AFTER HORRIFIC INJURY OCCURS IN AHL FIGHT, IT’S TIME TO PUT AN END TO THIS INSANITY:

How anyone could watch the stomach-churning video of the recent fight in the AHL between Derek Sheppard and Kale Kessy and still believe there is any place for fighting at any level of hockey is entirely beyond me. But there are people who still believe that. A lot of them, I reckon.
So those of you who are still comfortable watching a player get stretchered off the ice with an oxygen mask over his face, I have one question for you. Y’all know somebody is going to die in a hockey fight someday, right? It might be tonight. It might be this weekend. It might be 10 years from now, but it will happen.
If the players themselves don’t realize it, this insanity has to stop. It won’t, though, so consider yourselves warned. After the Don Sanderson death, I had one hockey observer opine that fighting has been around for a hundred years in hockey and that there had only been one death. That seemed like an acceptable ratio to him.


Look, I’m not advocating for anyone to get hurt, obviously… but hockey is a physical sport and I hope that never changes. To me, that includes fighting. Be wary of the rule of unintended consequences. Remove fighting from the game entirely and we’ll have new and potentially bigger problems to deal with. I’d love to hear Mr. Campbell’s argument when we do away with fighting and suddenly we have a rash of cross checks to the face to deal with. C’mon, Ken… 

Source: Ken Campbell