Friday’s SM league matches will be watched on Puhe’s Ice Hockey Tour starting at 6 p.m.
In the Ice Hockey SM League, the early season was quiet in terms of fights, but now the gloves have fallen hard.
Tapparan in Tampere Luke Witkowski and TPS Oliver Lauridsen met on Saturday, November 25, in Pori, Ässien Jami Virtanen explained Lukon in between Lenni Hämäläinen with on Friday 1 December and in Oulu Kärppien Nick Ritchie went to fist fights with HIFK Ilari Melartin by invitation on Saturday, December 2.
Only for the first fight did the SM league issue a two-match ban due to non-spontaneity. Due to public pressure, Tappara’s social media group had to remove the fight video from its pages and apologized for its action.
Urheilu’s ice hockey expert Top Nättinen believes that fights do not belong in hockey.
– I don’t think this has ever been sufficiently well justified as to why they should even be included in the first place. I understand the “code set” and why there used to be “policemen” in North America, but if you think about hockey, then fights are no longer part of the sport, emphasizes Nättinen.
Nättinen says that it is a game where the aim is to score more goals than the opponent.
– I have interpreted the rulebook so that you can win the match without any fistfights or tackles. The sport involves hard contact, and I understand taking control. As a former player, I know that there are a hundred million other ways to gain a sense of control in a game than fighting.
The ice hockey expert scrutinizes show fights in the domestic league and would like proper sanctions for them also for clubs, not just individual players.
– Nothing came of a spontaneous fight like Ritchie-Melart. Here, however, it was the same idea of hitting someone in the face with a bare fist, so that the other person gets hurt in a hockey game. I would honestly like to hear what the zero game suspension for spontaneity is based on? It was a fight though!
Nättinen sees a big problem in the fact that if and when a puck player makes a tackle half-accidentally hitting an opponent in the head – which is really dangerous and must be eradicated – it results in a four-five game ban. No fight again.
– I can’t find any line in this. This drawback must definitely be changed.
Fighting will never be banned in the NHL
Urheilu’s second hockey expert Ismo Lehkonen is of the opinion that the decision-makers of the SM league should make a direct statement on whether fights are allowed in ice hockey or not.
It’s strange about Lehkonen that we talk about professional sports and the entertainment business, but the fights are still in the gray area in hockey, where we throw things here and there.
– So now we are only talking about professional sports. When you go from A juniors down, of course you can’t fight there. It’s an absolute rule, and it doesn’t belong there at all. The coaching managers of each club create the right values for the player’s path, and you have to be extremely precise in that, says Lehkonen.
– Ice hockey is an entertainment business. Fighting will never be banned in the NHL, at least not in my lifetime. And they won’t run out of Central European series either. The purpose of joint-stock companies is of course to make a profit, and the paying public is the one who defines that.
There have been more fights in the NHL during just one round than in the entire SM league in the early season. Fist rings have been recorded of hockeyfights.com according to so far a total of 97. Their numbers are on the rise compared to previous years.
– Unfortunately, some people come to the hockey stands to watch that feeling, some of those hard tackles and quite a lot of goaltending hassles. Then when there is boy wrestling or fist fights, the majority, according to Arvioni 90 percent, get up from the seats and start cheering for it, describes Lehkonen.
Episode Witkowski–Lauridsen
In the domestic SM league, fights made headlines for the first time, when at the end of November Tappara’s Luke Witkowski and TPS’s Oliver Lauridsen got into a showdown by fighting. Discipline would result in two game suspensions for the non-spontaneous incident.
– The boys had a brain fart in the matter, when no one had told the two that they had to disguise the fight nicely so that it doesn’t look non-spontaneous, states puck expert Lehkonen.
According to Article 46 of the rule book, fighting is not part of international hockey, states the League’s disciplinary decision.
– I’m sure that the ambiguity of the nakki kiosk in Pori came as a complete surprise to the duo and thus became quite expensive.
Lehkonen says that he does not necessarily distinguish between spontaneous and non-spontaneous fighting.
– It’s a cool thing that with a glove you can hit the larves in front of the goal, and it usually lasts two minutes. I can honestly say that the new gloves with that sharp plastic thing, if timed right, does worse to the jawbone than hitting with your knuckles.
Lehkonen states that Finnish figure hockey fans get along well, even if there is no fighting in the SM league.
– It will then come before the players when they go to the NHL or Central Europe. You don’t have to fight there, either, but then you can watch in horror as people snort and rot away.
Helenius: There was no show fight in Tampere
Currently a member of KooKoo’s coaching team Sami Helenius cleared his way to the NHL in his playing career by literally fighting and showing that he was always ready for a physical struggle.
Also in the SM league, Helenius had time to do the “entertainment business”, as he accumulated 1,052 minutes of ice time in 394 league matches. It ranks tenth in the all-time league statistics.
Helenius has nothing to criticize about the discipline of the league, but he is not personally satisfied with the line drawn in the fights.
– Two big boys went to Tampere to sort out their differences and make two matches out of it, I’m against this. I don’t think it was a show fight.
According to Helenius, hockey requires mental and physical tricks from the opponent.
– It’s an emotional game where two guys wink at each other during the game, and want to go to the party. Why let two matches be played? In Tampere, we saw fair boys’ wrestling, where no one was injured. Ice hockey is primarily a goal-scoring game, but each player has their own role within it, Helenius reminds.
Joensuu flags in the name of spontaneous fights
Aces’ captain and 36-year-old power forward To Jesse Joensuu the opinion about SM league fights is not surprising.
– Fights definitely belong to hockey and specifically spontaneous self-defense. Such things belong to hockey and should not be punished so hard.
Joensuu, known as an “old league” puck player, says that during his six seasons playing in North America, he often had to defend himself in a fight, when the defenders of the opposing side brutally and painfully gave lumber to a sore spot.
Joensuu accumulated a total of 232 ice minutes in 129 NHL games and 177 AHL games.
– In Kaukalo, you can do a lot of damage to the opponent. Fighting is a sign that not everything can be digested. For example, you can’t beat me like a foreign pig, lest I defend myself in the situation.
Joensuu states that if fights are punished with severe punishments and loss of earnings, then of course they will go away.