Toronto Maple Leafs: NHL Needs to Follow the QMJHL and Ban Fighting

The Toronto Maple Leafs signed an enforcer to a three-year contract in 2023.

Earlier this summer, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Ryan Reeves for above the league minimum, and it’s hard to think of any contract any team signed this year that was more universally lambasted. 

The reason the deal is so ridiculous is because it pays a player who is incredibly old and who wouldn’t ever make an NHL team, except to fight, and fighting has been declining for years.

Since teams no longer dress enforcers, and since the Leafs hadn’t employed one since Nonis and Burke were in charge, it was a weird signing that deserves all the criticism is gets. (For one-year and the league minimum, it would have been fine.  To give such a player money you could use to better your team and three years of term is so out of line with how a hockey team should be run in 2023 it makes you think the entire organization might be incompetent). 

The timing of such a move was interesting because shortly after, the QMJHL (Quebec Major-Junior Hockey League) banned fighting.  

It is something the NHL should do as well.

 NHL Needs to Follow the QMJHL and Ban Fighting

Fighting is entertaining and I used to love to watch it. If the consequences weren’t so horrible, I’d be a huge fan.

The fact is, with the information we know have about what years of bare-knuckle boxing does to a person, it is no longer conscienceable to keep it in the game.

Excuses about policing the game just don’t hold any water – that’s what referees are for.  Fighting was fun, but science has shown it’s not justifiable.

Just look at the list of former NHL heavyweights who made the news for extremely sad reasons in their post-hockey careers.  A recent study showed that, on average, NHL Enforcers died ten years earlier than other types of players. (CBC.com). 

Given what we know about this and about CTE, there is just no reason to let people fight each other for our entertainment.  It’s even worse when the are teenagers, but I would still expect the NHL to follow the QMJHL example sooner rather than later.

Obviously, fighting, and the culture around it is a big part of hockey, but that has to change.  The NHL didn’t used to allow jersey ads, they do now.  They didn’t used to allow gambling, now they do. I don’t like those developments, but they do show that the game can change.

There is a large part of NHL culture that is going through the processes of being changed (slowly, as the Staal Brothers make clear) and getting rid of fighting is a part of that.

Fighting is down in the NHL to all-time lows, and it’s time for the NHL to take leadership and ban it completely.