Prior to a September 23rd it seemed that nobody had told Washington Capitals enforcer: Joel Rechlicz that speeding fits colliding with your skull often inflict pain. But not to worry, by the 15th minute of that night's game against the Bruins, Milan Lucic had enlightened him...sort of.
In a ferocious fight that left Rechlicz bruised and out of sorts, Lucic absolutely wrecked poor Joel landing punch after punch while engaging in a seemingly endless fight that seemed only fit to be drawn out in a Roman gladiator arena. But no matter how brutal it is, fighting is a part of hockey, interwoven with the game and completely necessary among the factoids and memories in the NHL's great history. We all know fighting is bad. It turns brains into mashed potato and leaves knuckles un-recognizable by the end of their careers as enforcers. There is obviously a strong argument already staked on the subject of banning these brutal bouts but at the same time it is guys like Shawn Thornton, Zedeno Chara and Milan Lucic that make you finally realize that those futile arguments are well, futile.
But nevertheless there is one aspect of fighting that can be far more thoroughly questioned. Why do preseason fights even exist? The games do not count, the scores mean nothing. These games are almost invisible, meaningless, and free of any weight or value to their winners. But while that may be true, the injuries sustained in these strangely violent exhibition games are anything but nonexistent.
After Bruins fans were treated to their first preseason fight in over 2 calendar years back on September 16th, the black and gold have managed to successfully accumulate a whopping 9 tussles in just 6 games.
“Obviously there’s a lot of cons in fighting in preseason. You don’t want to break a hand or get a concussion or anything like that from fighting in the preseason,” Lucic said after the Bruins won 3-2 in overtime at TD Garden. “But you know the pros are you’re showing that no matter what the situation is or no matter what the game is, you’re going to stick up for yourself and your teammates no matter what the situation is. And that’s what it basically was. I didn’t really have a choice. So like I said, it was just good to get into one. And it was a long one. I had to catch my breath after that one.”
The fight Lucic was referencing there was the same one in which the picture above was taken and came after teammate Dane Byers was absolutely cleaned out by a 26 year old Rechlicz who was just 2 seasons removed from a 200+ PIM season in the NHL. Insanely, even after Rechlicz stumbled back to his dressing room following the merciful end to that bout, he returned to the ice and decided to pick a fight with yet another enraged Bruin: Johnny Boychuck.
Once again countless punches were thrown and this time Rechlicz actually took Boychuck down. That fight in particular obviously made Bruins fans mad. The Boychuck hit that spawned that fight was not even hard enough to take its recipient down. But within seconds Rechlicz had Boychuck pinned against the boards while taking a good 2 or 3 defenseless punches to the ribs. If it is even to exist, preseason fighting should be reserved for big time offences. Hitting the goaltender, boarding, charging, those are the kinds of crimes meriting of a fight. Not a simple center ice collision.
As was said before, the Bruins have accumulated 9 fights this preseason. That is slightly abnormal as these 9 fights are the highest since the team recorded 15 in 2009-2010. Another far stranger fact though is that that with 9 fights in 6 games the Bruins are averaging 1.5 fights per game. That is almost identical to the 1.5 in this last season and the slightly lesser 1.3 fights per game the year before.
So why fight like this, why is there no discrepancy between regular and preseason fight tallies when in one set of games, wins and losses are treasured like gold and in the other they are thrown away like Twinkie wrappers. Because for some kids playing in these games, this is as close as they will ever get to the NHL. Fights are a product of high stakes, competing players and upped anxiety surrounding a single game and when you have college kids fighting it out to realize their ultimate hockey goal, the amount of anger and competitive nature is as high if not higher than that of a regular season game when the roster is set and the salaries are confirmed.
There are arguments for and against fighting in hockey but while regular season battles are nearly set in stone, the stories surrounding these 9 preseason battles are in a way, far more intriguing.
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