Gary Bettman Comments on Future of Fighting in NHL

The consequences of repeated head trauma have become one of the biggest issues in sports over recent years. While some may consider outlawing fighting a way for the NHL to attempt to curb head trauma, Commissioner Gary Bettman sees fisticuffs as an intrinsic part of the game.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Bettman argued fighting still has a role in the NHL:

Bettman's stance goes back at least a few years.

In March, TSN's Rick Westhead wrote extensively for CTV News about email correspondence between the commissioner, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and Brendan Shanahan, who was the league's director of player safety at the time. In the emails, Bettman made the case for why banning fighting was a bad idea:

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Do you remember what happened when we tried to eliminate the staged fights? The "fighters" objected and so did the [NHLPA]. Eliminating fighting would mean eliminating the jobs of the "fighters," meaning these guys would not have NHL careers. An interesting question is whether being an NHL fighter does this to you [I don't believe so] or whether a certain type of person [who wouldn't otherwise be skilled enough to be an NHL player] gravitates to this job [I believe more likely].

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Daly made a connection between fights and an increased risk of head injuries: "I tend to think it's a little bit of both. Fighting raises the incidence of head injuries/concussion, which raises the incidence of depression onset, which raises the incidence of personal tragedies."

Daly's comments seemingly contradict statements Bettman made earlier this year.

Jeff Miller, the NFL's senior vice president for health and safety, said in March in front of a congressional committee that a link exists between playing football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease. Bettman then moved to play down any similarities between the NHL and the NFL.

"First of all, I don't feel that it's either necessary or appropriate for me to comment on what the NFL either says or does," he said March 16, per Postmedia News' Mike Zeisberger (via the National Post). "Secondly, I think it's fairly clear that playing hockey isn't the same as playing football. And as we've said all along, we're not going to get in a public debate on this."

The emails Westhead documented were included in a lawsuit against the league by former hockey players, who argued the NHL was negligent in regard to the long-term effects of repeated head trauma.