The role of the enforcers, who do most of the fighting, is the focus of a new film, Goon. But there is growing evidence that some players suffer long-term damage and questions are being asked whether enforcers pay a terrible price.
Jim Thomson barks orders at his young charges at one of hundreds of ice rinks scattered across the vast plains of Canada. He is helping the boys improve at ice hockey. And yet he has made it his mission to steer the hockey-obsessed teenagers attending his sessions down an alternative path to the one he followed. Like most young boys in Canada, Jim Thomson played ice hockey. He practised on the frozen ponds of Edmonton, Alberta, hockey's heartland.
He was raised in a trailer park. Money was tight, so his family couldn't afford the necessary kit. But Jim Thomson was all grizzly determination, and his natural ability with a hockey stick attracted the attention of scouts. His journey to the NHL, the holy grail for Canadian hockey players, had begun. Jim was a skilful skater, with a fierce accurate shot. He moved east to Ontario where he continued to move up the ranks.
But aged 14, people started to notice him for a different skill. Jim was good with his fists. He cross checks me in front of the net, and I go down on to the ice. So he pushed me and the next thing I know he was lying on his back. I caught him with a lucky punch and he was out. Jim quickly earned a reputation as a good fighter. In North American ice hockey, teams are always on the look out for a bruiser, someone who is willing to skate onto the ice and punch an opponent.
Jim Thomson became what is known as an enforcer, and it was his ticket to the NHL. I had 41 fights in 57 games, I had penalty minutes, led the league in penalty minutes, and then I was in the NHL as an enforcer. The NHL is unique. Nowhere in the world is there a major team sport which tolerates fighting. Enforcers, otherwise known as on-ice policemen or goons, are employed to protect more skilful members of their team.
Gretz's study concluded that over the previous two seasons, a team with an enforcer was just as likely as a team without one to be on the receiving end of a violent act that resulted in a match penalty, fine or suspension.
At the risk of overkill, a topic as controversial as this requires at least one more confirmation. Fortunately, blogger SkinnyFish at Pension Plan Puppets went one step further, studying the correlation between how often a team fights and how often they draw physical penalties. If fighting deterred such dirty behavior, there would be a negative correlation between the two. In fact, though, there was virtually no correlation at all.
The study concluded that "this should be the proverbial nail in the coffin for talk about fighting serving as a deterrent for naughty behavior in hockey.
While that may be a little too definitive a statement, these studies paint a highly compelling picture that having an enforcer does not reduce a team's risk of injury. It also doesn't reduce the likelihood of being on the receiving end of dirty hits and cheap shots. There has also been no shortage of research looking for a link between fighting and a team's momentum.
Thus far, no such connection has been found—or at least not one of any real significance. The first important study on fighting and momentum was done in by Gabriel Desjardins of Hockey Prospectus. That certainly doesn't sound like it warrants the inclusion of a fighter — especially one who can't also handle a regular shift — in a team's lineup.
More recent studies have actually found that winning a fight actually hurt a team's momentum last season. His study actually found that the team on the winning side of an enforcer's fight was actually more likely to concede the next goal than to score it.
Xavier Weisenreder of Georgetown Sports Analysis found that "there is no evidence that winning a fight leads to better results in the immediate aftermath of the fight. In fact, it appears that the team winning the fight will score slightly less goals in the game than they did previously. Perhaps winning a fight isn't nearly as important as simply having the fight in the first place, in terms of changing momentum.
Well, Phil Birnbaum conducted a thorough study, looking at what happened to teams that instigated a fight. After much analysis on year-old data, the most he was prepared to concede was that "there might be a small effect in certain specific circumstances.
If fighting does indeed change a game's momentum and gives a team a boost, it isn't something that can be consistently captured analytically on the scoresheet. Statistically there is absolutely no evidence that enforcers help teams in any way at all. Spoiler: it keeps happening.
And why should they be? And even if he does take some kind of retaliatory action, how often has McLeod gotten into a fight which actually impressed? I rewatched his fights and took a look at his fight cards from HockeyFights.
As you can see, only four of McLeod's eighteen fights in gold have even been in defense of a teammate at all, and for three of those four he was either already on the ice or about to start his next shift. Giving McLeod an instigator for that was basically just adding insult to injury. Another big thing is that most of his fights are in the first couple of minutes of a period. Overall, the later in the game it is, the less likely McLeod is to be fighting. Part of this is because the later in the game it is the more likely Laviolette is to have shortened his bench.
So when Weber was traded, it might have seemed logical to replace one great defenseman who is also a physical player with one great defenseman and one, separate, physical player.
But Weber got those special-teams minutes, the top-competition matchups, twenty-six minutes on ice a night. And Weber feeling the need to actually fight someone was very, very rare. Part of that might be their relative sizes, part of it might be their fighting styles, and part of it might just be that everyone expects Cody McLeod to punch someone at some point anyway. They are not the same player. They will not have the same effects. Seven minutes on ice—the amount of time Laviolette trusts McLeod with—might not seem like a lot.
But an awful lot can happen in seven minutes. Every shift matters.
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