A visit from Mr. Thompson...

Getting the opportunity to meet Wright Thompson and hear him speak was definitely one of the highlights of my stay here at UMass and one of the more interesting experiences I have ever had in an academic setting. I must say that I learned a great deal in the short amount of time he spent with our class and I can honestly say that I won’t forget it anytime soon.

Before he came to speak to our class, I had heard of him in passing but I had never seen him on television or laid eyes on a photograph of the man. When I finally did lay eyes on him, I was initially taken aback by his appearance.

He didn’t look like your typical journalist.

While I am not certain of how a journalist is supposed to look, but the vast majority of those I’ve come across have been clean really clean-cut and “professional” looking. Thompson was anything but that.

He had what could be described as fairly long hair and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved in several weeks. He had a very rugged and somewhat mysterious appearance unlike anything I’d ever before in a journalist.

He came across as somewhat of a rebel and I was pretty intrigued by that.

What fascinated me the most about him was how informal his lecture was. He spoke very naturally and loosely as if we were all in a bar having a drink and not in a classroom somewhere. I found him to be engaging, hilarious, genuine, down to earth, charismatic, reflective, and certainly irreverent.

I was also fascinated by his ability to be brutally honest and candid about his past experiences, such as the time he spent in Miami trying desperately to track down an obscure boxer in his “Shadowboxing” story or the time spent interviewing and just hanging out with Michael Jordan.

Ultimately I was very amazed at how well he was able to connect with people, and ultimately humanize them. To me, that is the real beauty of Mr. Thompson’s work and it is very evident in “Michael Jordan Has Not Left the Building,” his most recent article for ESPN. It was also cool to see the manner in which he went about composing the story. I had never realized how important of a step outlining was until he spoke to our class.

The very next day, I woke up rather early and tuned into ESPN and lo and behold I saw Mr. Thompson discussing the content’s of his Michael Jordan piece on Sportscenter. It was quite surreal to see him on national television in the exact same clothes he wore when he spoke to our class. This might come across as childish, but it felt as if our class had been let in on some sort of secret or that we had been apart of a special moment in time. As I watched the segment, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was apart of that moment. It was a pretty special feeling. I just remembered being grateful that I had the opportunity to meet the man and hear him speak and ultimately learn some very important lessons in the process.

The fights must continue!

After a rather lively argument with Jennifer Magery about the necessity of fighting in hockey, we were asked to switch sides in the debate. She had to take my position and explain to me why fighting in hockey was useless and unnecessary, while I had to take hers and argue as to why that would be untrue.  I decided to focus on the three main reasons I felt fighting was an important part of the game. Here is a summary of the arguments I gave to her in our conversation.

Fights temporarily stop gameplay

Fights are effective because they momentarily stop the flow of the game and the two combatants can take center stage and duke it out. This makes them so much more effective than a mere hit. The game of hockey is so fast-paced and continuous that hit can be meaningless. Unless you knock the guy out or break his nose, he’s simply going to get back up and re-join the play. Players get hit all of the time in hockey. What way is that to send a message? That is why fighting is the way to go.

Fights really do impact the game in a real way

Like it or not, a fight can have a very lasting imprint on the course of a game. You can even argue that a fight is worth almost as much as a goal if it takes place at the right juncture of a game. Seeing a teammate bust up an opponent’s face will liven up the crowd (who absolutely love to witness fights) and inspire your teammates. It heightens the intensity of the game and causes players to check into it both emotionally and psychologically. Think about the effect losing a fight can have on the team against which your playing. Seeing a teammate get their ass handed to them in center ice (nowhere to hide) cannot do much good for a team’s psyche. It can be downright demoralizing.

Fights keep players honest

Aside from being a huge generator of good ol' momentum, fighting also keeps players honest, making it less likely more players to land cheap and potentially dangerous shots against each other.  The idea is simple: you would probably think twice about charley-horsing an opponent or hitting them into the boards from behind if in the back of your head you knew that you could get a black eye or probably loose a tooth or two behind it. Fighting is nothing more than players policing each other. There’s no harm in that.

Hockey Culture 101

To whom this may concern,

If you have never seen the game of hockey, it is something to behold. It is probably one of the most unique sports known to man. Aside from being by far the fastest team sport in the world, it is also one of the most physical and vicious.

Before you watch the game, I must warn you that you will most likely see one, if not two or three fights. The crowd will erupt into cheers. The officials will make very little effort (if any) to stop the fight.

Please let me explain.

Hockey is probably the only non-combat sport where fighting is now only permitted, but explicitly endorsed. Although it is considered as being crude and brutish and is a lighting rod for criticism of the sport, it has been an openly accepted part of the game for well over a century.

Even though fighting does not in any way directly impact the game in a practical way, it is considered by many to integral part of its underlying culture. For those who defend this culture, their arguments are strange, even primitive.

Hockey is seen as some sort of a refuge for this sort gladiatorial behavior that has been in some way or another removed out of every other sport. In basketball, fights are very rare and the consequences for doing so can be extensive (automatic ejection, ensuing suspensions, hefty fines).

In baseball, a sport known for very large bench-clearing brawls that can involve well over 50 people, those who engage in physical confrontations can expect to be suspended and fined for their actions. Even in american football, a vicious contact sport in which 20 mile per hour collisions are commonplace and most of its former players are suspected to be suffering from brain damage, fighting is strongly discouraged and met with suspensions and fines.

Hockey culture stands in outright defiance of this.

In the NHL, the highest level of professional hockey we have, a fight usually takes place every other game. Instead of missing a game or two and being lighter in the pocket, hockey players that fight are simply removed from play for a mere five minutes.

Since both participants are penalised, their penalties effectively cancel out and it is as if nothing happened. instead of playing 5 on 5, both teams play 4 on 4 for 5 minutes until both penalities expire.

What makes fighting in hockey all the more interesting, is that it is seen as some form of traditional ritual. Unlike other sports where a fight between two men will almost always escalate into an all-inclusive shoving match or brawl, this rarely happens in hockey. Hockey fights are conducted in what can almost be described as an honorable manner.

Both men are respectfully left alone to fight by players and officials alike, remove their gloves and helmets and start wailing on each other. Fights either end once there is there is a clear winner, or when the officials see fit to intervene.

Supporters of hockey also view fighting as an emotional cap, arguing that it settles conflicts before they involve actions that can be more potentially dangerous than a punch to the face. There are very few things in hockey more dangerous than a 6’3” 230-pound man skating around at a couple dozen miles per hour with notihing but bad intentions on their mind. Anything can happen under those circumstances.

Although it has never been conclusively proven , it is argued that fighting discourages cheap and recklessly dangerous plays. Apparently, nothing will better deter a player from laying a dirty hit on an opponent than the prospect of getting his ass kicked. In this manner, fighting keeps players honest as they are made to be aware that they will be held accountable for their actions.

To conclude, hockey culture is rooted in some sort of gladiatorial-like tradition. Yes, there are rules, and yes, the ultimate object of the game is to score, but at its very core, hockey is an intensely physical sport, with primal and brutish concepts governed by a certain set of unwritten rules for better or for worse.

Concussions and the Super Bowl

Over the past few years, traumatic head injuries, most notably concussions, have become a subject of deep concern, particularly as it pertains to the NFL. The league has come under public scrutiny and has garnered a great amount media attention over the issue, as research linking football to degenerative brain disease have become more and more conclusive. This is evidenced in the much-publicized suicide of Junior Seau, who had been suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

The issue of concussions was also one of the major issues discussed during Super Bowl Media Day. More than a few members of both the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens addressed the issue when prompted. Ravens safety Bernard Pollard made headlines when he came out and said that the NFL wouldn’t be around in 30 years because the rule changes created to make the game safer would ultimately turn fans away from it. He even went as far as predicting that we would eventually see someone die on the field of play.

Despite the conversation on the issue of concussions being so prevalent in the days leading up to the game, I didn’t exactly expect the issue to be brought up during the game itself. That is probably why I wasn’t exactly shocked when the issue was not brought up at any point during the approximately five-hour long CBS broadcast.

I am not sure if the decision not speak on the issue of head injuries was intentional, but I can definitely understand why no mention of it was made. Even though the issue of concussions in the game of football is an extremely important one, given the potentially disastrous toll they can take on a player’s physiological and neurological health, there is a time and a place for everything. The live broadcast of one of the most watched televised events on the planet wasn’t the place to open that Pandora’s box.

Unless there was a an extremely valid reason to do so, such as having a player carted off the field after a helmet-to-helmet collision, there was no reason to bring up such a weighty issue during what should be the most important celebration of the game of football.

Again, there is a time and a place for everything.