Monumental Shift

We've known for a few years that the QMJHL has been under pressure from the Quebec government to remove fighting from the junior circuit. While the frequency of fights has been traditionally falling each year over the last decade as teams and players put a higher value on hockey skills rather than fighting skills, there still was the occasional skirmish last season that happened. In a game played with both physicality and emotion, that's not unexpected, but it seems the QMJHL will make players think twice about dropping the gloves this season as they've gone ahead and banned fighting in all QMJHL games. Before we go any further, spare me your outrage because this decision was inevitable.

QMJHL Commissioner Mario Cecchini revealed the new safety measures in June with the QMJHL making them official via a vote by the Board of Governors on Thursday. As a result, fighting will no longer be allowed in games with the punishment for fighting to be far more punitive than ever before. The new regulations on fighting can be found on Page 21 of the QMJHL Safety Regulations document, and it reads as follows:

"Rule 47 of the Playing Rules, starting with the 2023-2024 season, provides for fights being prohibited with more restrictive and dissuasive sanctions in order to emphasize a safe quality of play conducive to the development of players participating in QMJHL activities."

That seems very straightforward in its wording, but fighting was never condoned in any league prior to this new decision so you may be wondering how this changes anything. It's not so much that fighting has been banned, but it's the penalties for fighting that will make it far harder to justify or rationalize in games moving forward. The new rules include:

• As soon as a fight occurs, those engaged must be systematically ejected from the game.
• Any player found to have instigated the fight will also receive an automatic one-game suspension.
• The person declared to be the aggressor during the fight will receive a minimum of two automatic games of suspension.
• In addition to the game misconduct, an automatic game suspension is imposed starting with the player's 2nd fight of the season. This suspension is in addition to the sanctions described in the preceding paragraphs.

These rules are, again, pretty straightforward when it comes to their purposes, and all of the above rules should discourage players from fighting if they hope to catch the eyes of scouts. While there could still be a fight that breaks out thanks to physical play and emotions, what the QMJHL is looking to do is remove the staged fights, the retaliatory fights, and a general brawling mentality in order to ensure that players are best protected from injuries like concussions and CTE. In short, this should make for better hockey games that show skills and abilities, not intimidation and brawls.

While the OHL and WHL both have rules to discourage fighting, the QMJHL rules are the mist punitive of the three CHL leagues at this point. With the frequency of fights in the QMJHL clocked in at an average of 0.14 per game last season, there were already very few fights happening. These new rules will likely ensure that number drops again for 2023-24 as suspensions are never something players want when competing for scouts' eyes and potential professional roster spots. We also know a large number of QMJHL players move on to to U SPORTS where fighting is banned, so suspended players usually have a harder time being recruiting as well.

Scouting aside, players that are between the ages of 16 and 20 certainly shouldn't miss time for unnecessary injuries caused by fighting. One can claim that there are less injuries than what we see in games with fights, but the fact that people are still getting injured IN FIGHTS is part of the problem here. The WHL banned players from removing their helmets in order to make players think twice about punching a helmet, so preventative measures do work. The fact that the QMJHL has now outlawed fighting should reduce injuries as well. Yes, you might be right in this measure not being a significant dent in those number, but any decrease is better for the game itself.

With Ken Dryden turning 76 on Tuesday, I thought I'd bring up a study done by Columbia University about enforcers and their lives following the game. The question posed by researchers was simple: do NHL enforcers with more career fights or penalty minutes differ in mortality rates or cause of death when compared with control NHL players? They defined an enforcer with 50 or more fights with a player of comparable size and position on the ice, and used those controls to look at the mortality rate of 6039 NHL players.

While 90% of the players in the study are still alive (thankfully), what they found is that "NHL enforcers died at similar rates but approximately 10 years earlier when compared with NHL controls" and that "the causes of death in the 21 enforcers included neurodegenerative disorders, drug overdose, suicide, and motor vehicle crashes, whereas only 1 of the 24 age-matched controls died of any of these causes (motor vehicle crash)". In short, repeated fighting does significant long-term damage to players far beyond their playing days.

The above paragraph shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has followed the game over the last two decades. Jeremy Allingham's book, Major Misconduct, follows three former hockey players in James McEwen, Stephen Peat, and Dale Purinton as he demonstrates the lasting effects of their careers built on physical play and fighting, but James McEwen's story likely resonates best since his career saw him skate at the minor-pro level only. Since retiring, he's received help and done some personal reflection, and now advocates for removing fighting from the game.

The QMJHL is very aware their new measures will not stop all fights from happening, but, as they do in other sports, those who fight will face tougher penalties for choosing to settle their differences in that manner than ever before. I have yet to hear any hockey fan complain about the lack of fighting in the playoffs, the Olympics, or the World Junior Championships, yet everyone watches those events like it's a mandatory activity.

Before you jump on me by saying that no one is handing out gold medals in the regular season, I get that point. In my view, the regular seasons for most sports go on way too long, but it's during the season where these players are scouted, analyzed, and potentially promoted within the higher levels of hockey. Having players miss games because "fighting is a part of hockey" is a dumb way to limit one's potential earnings and career in hockey.

You're welcome to disagree with me. You're welcome to call me "soft" or "snowflake" or whatever term you'd like when it comes to my stance on junior hockey, but teenagers shouldn't be fighting one another for any reason in a hockey game. If you're opinion differs, I'd ask that you wear gloves for the knuckle-dragging you do because this game is evolving every year to be better, faster, and more talented. And that evolution isn't stopping because players like Crosby, MacKinnon, Ehlers, and Hischier - all QMJHL guys! - fill seats in rinks across the continent.

Personally, I want to watch the best hockey possible where I'm wowed by the skill shown on the ice when it comes to dangling, scoring, and deking. The enforcer role is dead thanks to skill taking over, and I'm thankful that the QMJHL is emphasizing skill and speed over fists and thuggery. Hockey, as a game, will be better off for this stance, and I can only hope other leagues begin to crack down on fighting with some severe penalties as well.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!