A few months ago, I ran into former Ranger tough guy and fan favorite Nick Fotiu, who shared his thoughts on the rivalry with the Islanders in the late 70s and 80s. Over the course of the interview, Fotiu also spoke about how he was actually Scott Gordon’s coach at one point in his career, making the interview that much more interesting to Islander fans who otherwise wouldn’t have been interested in what Fotiu had to say [especially since he made a name for himself checking the hell out of every Islander he could get his hands on during his heyday].

After the game, I had an opportunity to ask him a few questions about just how intense the rivalry was between the Islanders and Rangers.

The Drive for Five: You played a big part in the Islanders/Rangers rivalry in the 70s and 80s. What was it like for you?

Ron Duguay: What made it exciting aside from the teams being so close in proximity, was the fans. I’m sure that there were probably more fights in the stands than on the ice at times and it was fitting since the fans were the ones that really created this rivalry. On top of that, both teams really enjoyed playing against each other and there was a respect. It wasn’t like when we played Philadelphia, when it was a gong show. When we played the Islanders, it was hard-nosed hockey.

TDFF: Was there a player on the Islanders that you were scared to hit the ice with?

Duguay: No. I just knew and was always aware that if I went into Denis Potvin’s zone, I was going to get hit and hit hard. Other than that, I think everyone always played hard and were respectful of each other.

Photo Patrick Hickey Jr.

Posted under 2008-2009, NHL, Random Rant

Forgive my semi-off-topic rant in the beginning, I promise it’ll get somewhere by the end!

When I first became a journalist, I was told by another writer a few years my senior that by just being at games, you learn things that fans could kill to know and by just being at those games, you never know what stories you can get. It’s just a matter of dedicating yourself to giving up your fandom and showing up every night with your laptop, recorder and shirt and tie and just being there. You show up two and a half hours before the game and you stay until after the game is over. You basically earn the respect of the players and the organization, which basically puts you in a situation to do your job better than anyone else.

This season, I have done that on my AcesOverBrooklyn.com site, which is dedicated to my coverage of the EPHL’s Brooklyn Aces and last night I got a bit of a reward for that hard work. Dropping the ceremonial first puck at the game last night was Montreal Canadiens forward Chris Higgins, who I had the opportunity to talk to after the game. We talked about his season for most of the interview, but I did manage to sneak in question I’ve been waiting to ask someone in the Montreal organization all season:

“Your powerplay isn’t nearly as good as it was last season, what did Mark Streit mean to it’s success?”

While Guy Carbonneau has dodged the question with the New York and Montreal media all season, Higgins, a Smithtown-native, was honest about what Streit meant to the Habs.

“He was a big reason why our powerplay was number one,” said Higgins. “He’s got a great shot as many of you guys in New York now know. He’s a great guy off the ice and he deserves to be playing every minute that he’s been playing this season. I’m glad he’s been given a shot to be a number one defenseman.”

If I was Streit, a comment like this would mean more than an All-Star nod. It means that the Canadiens know now that they made a mistake letting him go. Like I said before, the organization won’t admit it, but the players he shared a locker room with know just how vital he was.

Let’s hope the Islanders don’t make the same mistake in the future.

Photo by Patrick Hickey Jr.

Posted under 2008-2009, Isles Memories, Isles Thoughts 2009, NHL

The tired old cliché “There’s something in the water,” couldn’t ring truer here.

A month or so ago Islanders defenseman Thomas Pock received a five-game suspension for delivering an elbow shiver to the head of Ottawa Senators forward Ryan Shannon. Why it wasn’t the cleanest play in the world, it was more of a hard elbow “leaning” than a straightforward elbow delivered with malicious intent to injure. Seriously, what I used to do to Karl Malone when I played NBA Jam in arcades throughout Brooklyn during the late-’90s would have been far worse if it wasn’t virtual.

Over the weeks that followed,that incident, we’ve a couple of other elbows thrown with much better precision and accuracy, to only land shorter suspensions.

We’ve also seen the NHL’s poster boy, Sidney Crosby, punch someone in their nads and get nothing for it.

Now, it appears that Jarkko Ruutu is a lot more than an annoying Fin, who is in serious need of a phone booth meeting with someone like Eric Cairns.

He’s a vampire.

Biting the hand of Buffalo Sabres forward Andrew Peter’s the other night, Ruutu gets only a two-game suspension? I know that the injury a player suffers in lieu of the incident and what the league has charged other players with when similar infractions occur play a part in the end result, but seriously NHL, two games?

Biting someone in any sport is a grotesque action, even in MMA contests. A two-game suspension is a slap on the wrist. If it was something questionable, a-la a hit from semi-behind with two moving players, that is one thing, especially when you consider how fast this game is, but when a player’s glove is in your face and you decide to bite it, you don’t belong on the ice, you belong in a doctor’s office.

The Dallas Stars took the moral high road when they told Sean Avery to take a hike, maybe it’s time for Senators to do the same thing with Ruutu.

That seems extremely unlikely however when the league dishes out insignificant penalties such as these. Also considering how the game isn’t allowed to police itself the way it did, say, a decade ago, guys like Ruutu, if reined in properly, are worth a ton to teams. If this happened in 1994, I can easily rattle off a list of players on the Sabres alone that would have challenged Ruutu right after this occurred. In today’s NHL however, skill supersedes heart and loyalty, making for a game that I sometimes have a problem of recognizing.

Posted under 2008-2009, NHL, Random Rant

Rather than talks about the Islanders specifically today, I figured I’d take the time out to address the actions of Sydney Crosby over the past week.

You see, Crosby for all his talent, obviously has a vision problem. The other night, he thought Boris Valabik’s testicles were a punching bag. If you haven’t seen what happened, check it out here a few times.

Many of you guys know how I feel about fighting in this league. If you don’t, or you’re a first time reader, here it is. I feel that fighting serves a necessary function in the game and even if it didn’t, it’s entertaining and fans that aren’t necessarily interested in the game like to see it, which is good for the league as well. But when two guys are hitting a guy all over his body, that just not cool. That’s something I’d see on TNA Impact or WWE Raw, not in a professional hockey game. The team I cover in the EPHL, the Brooklyn Aces [here's a cheap plug, AcesOverBrooklyn.com] would never do something like that, so why do fans and media alike have to watch this in the best league in the world?

I’ll tell you why.

Sidney Crosby is untouchable and the league doesn’t care that he still has a ton of growing up to do. He was handed poster boy status in this league before his first game and in spite of his jaw-dropping offensive totals, he’s not the cleanest player in the league either. Right now, Crosby is like a young mafioso. He’s got more power than he could ever dream of and has all the right people watching his back. I mean seriously, this is a guy that from day one was living with Mario Lemieux. You can say whatever you want about Wayne Gretzky, but “The Great One” got initiated into the league by Billy Smith’s stick a few times before the Oilers started getting smart to having him protected. The Penguins on the other hand, have Crosby protected better than the pope.

One day though, someone in this league is going to make him pay for the things he’s done on the ice, like this, that are extremely questionable. Hell, in a one on one scrap, Valabik would destroy Crosby; he’s 6′7 240 pounds. But Crosby getting in a one on one scrap with someone legitimate and not named Andrew Ference will never ever happen because it’ll turn into something from the movie “The Warriors” in a heartbeat out there. If Gary Bettman is in the arena, you bet h’d jump out on the ice in defense of Crosby too.

However, that is what may be necessary for the maturation process to truly begin with someone aptly nicknamed “Sid the Kid.”

For the rest of the players in the NHL, a suspension would be mandatory for something like this, but Crosby is like Steven Segal for some reason. No, he’s not fat and doesn’t choke out baby seals on “Family Guy,” he’s just “Above the Law.” Why Bettman can guys get away with things like this and Thomas Pock gets a five game penalty for an elbow that did nothing? Why?

This isn’t even the first time someone has been borderline molested on the ice and nothings happened either. Remember last season when Garnett Exelby tried to castrate Blake Comeau?

If you haven’t seen this either, here it is.

After watching this and knowing that Exelby and Crosby never got suspended for these actions, it’s easy to see that the NHL has a sadomasochistic fetish here. They love seeing players getting hit in the chops. Why else would they let players get away with things like this? Exelby isn’t anywhere on the same level as Crosby and yet he got away with deliberately sphering someone in the nads. Knowing this, it’s fair to say that league probably has burned DVDs of the best chop shots and play them on slow nights or when the Lightning and Islanders are playing against one another.

While I can ultimately live with Exelby’s actions because I know it was out of sheer frustration [anyone remember that game?], Crosby does things like this because he can get away with it. He knows he’s untouchable.

Maybe I have a huge problem with this because of the way I was raised. Where I come from, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, no one is untouchable and the second they think they are, they wake up with a horse’s head in their bed or they get what’s coming to them. It’s a natural thing. Everyone shows respect to one another and if not, you pay the price.

If Crosby isn’t show the light soon, he’s going to have to pay a price he can’t afford.

Posted under 2008-2009, NHL, Random Rant

Last night was a testament to just how good Alexander Ovechkin really is.

Even without Chris Clark, Sergei Fedorov, Alex Semin and Mike Green, Ovechkin played his heart out, using his body and his stick in a game the Islanders never had a chance in.

Even though they showed some moxie battling back, the Islanders didn’t put up a fight in front of the net, leaving Joey MacDonald, who played his tail off, despite giving up four goals, out to dry. It didn’t help matters either that he couldn’t get his stick in front of a Donald Brashear tip that ended up putting the game away.

In spite of that, the Islanders lost this game way before Brashear’s goal. Way too many penalties and a general lack of hustle in their own end early on gave both Ovechkin and his teammates the confidence they needed to get ahead. Then, once the Islanders got back into the game, they made their biggest mistake of the night.

They made Ovechkin angry.

And obviously, they didn’t like him when he was angry. [Is it kind of a freak coincidence that AO and the Hulk have the same haircut?]

Sillinger’s first game back- Overall, I think there was a bit of tentativeness on his part, but it wasn’t anything you wouldn’t see from any player that’s played his first game in close to a year. In a few more games however, we’ll get to see what he’s capable of now with his surgically repaired hip.

For the Islanders sake and his, I hope he can get going. If he score 35-40 points the rest of the way, a lot of pressure gets taken off the backs of players like Bill Guerin, Doug Weight and Trent Hunter.

In other news, I recently interviewed Ranger old timer Nick Fotiu at Aviator Arena while covering the Brooklyn Aces for Bay Currents Newspaper and asked him a few questions about one of the best rivalries in sports today.

The Drive for Five- You played for the Rangers when the Islanders rivalry was at it’s All-Time high. Was there a player on the Islanders that you couldn’t wait to get in a scrap with or lay a big hit on?

Fotiu- Not really. I actually really had a lot of respect for those guys. Bobby Nystrom and Clark Gillies especially were really tough players that you had to work your hardest against if you were going to be succesful. Actually, the team’s coach now, Scotty Gordon, I coached Nashville Tennessee.

TDFF- What was it like to be a part of that rivalry?

Fotiu- It was really tough hockey. It was a war. A lot of hard-hitting and great goaltending. Every time the Islanders and Rangers played, it was like the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

You can read the rest of the interview on my Brooklyn Aces site, AcesoverBrooklyn.com

Posted under 2008-2009, NHL, Post Game Rants

Some of this may be old news, but considering I spoke about the Snow and Dubie situation on Tuesday, I figured I’d handle this stuff today.

Isles resign Jackman- For all intensive purposes, Tim Jackman isn’t someone who means much to the success of this team. However, he worked hard when he was up here and was willing to drop the gloves whenever he had to. I still think he has a lot more offensive potential than people give him credit for and think he could pot 10 goals a season if he got significant playing time. At 26 years old, he’s still young enough to give a two-way contract and provide depth at the NHL level, but old enough to set a good example for some of the babies in Bridgeport. Overall, I think it was a good signing. The guy played like he wanted to stay here and never looked out of place while he was on the ice. Add in the fact that he had 36 points in 44 games in Bridgeport and this was practically a no-brainer.

Milbury calls Tiger Woods what? Tiger Woods should have thought twice before he said no one watches hockey anymore. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Well no, I’m going to say much more than that actually. For a golfer to say no one watches hockey is like the owner of TAB saying that Mr. Pibb sucks. Let’s be honest here, we’re not talking about Baseball and the NFL, we’re talking about two cult sports that have loyal fan bases. Watching golf is the essentially like a being a Trekkie/Trekker, while watching hockey puts you more in the Dungeons & Dragons realm of consciousness. Either way, you’re looked down upon by most other sports fans. I personally grew up enjoying both sports and do enjoy hitting off the tee from time to time, but overall, hockey is a much-more rewarding sport to play and watch in my opinion.

As well, the ideals presented in golf are those of the purely individualistic kind. There are no playoff beards or five minute fighting penalties in golf. It’s because of that Woods’ ignorant comments don’t surprise me. Because in actuality, golfers live in a world where the only thing that matters is themselves. Hockey players however, as I have said numerous times on this site, are the greatest athletes in the world and are the friendliest to the media that I have ever encountered. They stick up for each other and care about the general welfare of the sport. That’s why “Mad Mike” said what he did. And for the record, there aren’t many times when I’d stick up for the guy, but in this case, he nailed it right on the head.

Tiger Woods is a Meathead.

Posted under Isles Thoughts 2008, NHL

From the first time a puck was dropped on a sheet of ice in North America, hockey players have earnestly felt the need to defend themselves and their teammates through physicality. During most of this time, it appeared that hockey and fisticuffs were wed. However, over the past five years, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and other high-profile league officials have sought to put a halt to the violence, much of which has been enjoyed for almost 100 years.

Though the league has attempted, ardently, to eliminate fighting from the sport, pockets of fans and media have felt that in doing so, the NHL was stripping the sport of its essence.

For many, fighting is a necessary evil and one that helps maintain the game’s classic norms of passion, courage and grit. Without it, many contend, the game becomes more about scoring and less about teamwork and toughness.

“Hockey is the only one of the four major sports with confines [where] a player can’t run out of bounds to avoid a hit,” said Hall of Fame broadcaster Jiggs McDonald, who has called over 3,200 NHL games over 45 years. “Some of those hits, the ones of questionable intent, lead to fights… But the more obvious is that hockey is the only sport to equip every player with a weapon – if they were to chose to use it that way.”

In the late 1970s, the NHL had an influx of European players and the league underwent changes.

The European players, for the most part, were better skaters than the North Americans who had long dominated the league and, as a result, offensive production skyrocketed. However, with fighting being illegal in European leagues, incidents of dirty plays
such as high-sticking, cross checking and tripping became more frequent. While most of the new players were reluctant to fight after committing the penalties, their North American teammates, who had grown accustomed to the league’s rough and tumble style, were more than willing to drop the gloves.

As the years went on, the frequency of questionable stick play increased, engulfing players of all backgrounds. The dirty plays, McDonald asserted, is the cause of the fighting and is what needs to be stopped, rather than the fighting itself.

But in spite of those beliefs, which are widespread, the league has continued to make it a goal to penalize fighting. In addition, the league has begun to call more penalties in an effort to produce as much offense as possible, because according to their studies, it’s what the fans want to see. That, McDonald believes, is a big mistake and one the league will pay for in the future.

“Fighting is the one thing that sets the sport apart and makes hockey unique,” he said. “If you watch two great fighters go toe to toe, you can’t help but get the feeling that it’s an art. These guys are extremely tough customers and they definitely serve a purpose out there. I’m not talking about the bench-clearing brawls, even though they are entertaining at times. I’m talking about the one-on-one fight. It changes the entire complexion of the game if done right; it gets an entire team and the fans going all at the same time.”

Knowing this, McDonald doesn’t really understand why the NHL would attempt to rob the game of one of it’s most entertaining elements.

“Over the years, the league has tried to take that element out of the game because they think the fans don’t like it. Well, they do. That was the thing that filled up buildings in Boston and Philadelphia,” he added. “You couldn’t buy a ticket back then to see the big bad Bruins or the Broad Street Bullies. Sure, they had players like Bobby Orr that the fans loved, but they also had players that were aggressive and would defend each other. That was what the fans came to see.”

Former NHL enforcer Bob Probert, who racked up 3,300 penalty minutes in a stellar 17-year career feels the same way. Despite scoring 163 goals and being a player who was quite capable of making it in the league without dropping the gloves, Probert is still infamous for the thrashings he has delivered on the ice. To him, fighting will always have a place in hockey, regardless of who’s playing and what the league tries to do to stop it.

“I think that fighting will always be a part of the game. It’s a part of the game that belongs there,” Probert, who scored 29 goals in the 1987-88 season, said. “It keeps players honest and keeps the cheap shots down. People think twice when they know someone will come after you if you get too physical.”

While McDonald and Probert accept and understand that fighting is a part of the game, Minnesota hockey writer Ross Bernstein dedicated a year of his life to finding out exactly why. In the process of interviewing dozens of players during the NHL lockout in 2005, he consistently came across the word “code.” It was during the writing of his book, “The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL,” that he began to understand what it was. The unspoken, unwritten rules that most hockey players abide by. “The Code,” as Bernstein put it in his book, is a system devised to protect talented players and ensure every player is responsible for their actions on the ice. While the majority of the athletes on the ice follow “The Code,” there are exceptions, which of course, lead to fisticuffs.

“It’s all about respect,” Bernstein said. “You have to always be accountable for your actions. When you decide to play like a jerk and hit people from behind or take liberties with someone and be disrespectful, you have to be held accountable. In hockey, there are serious consequences for actions like that. Hockey is very unique in the fact that it is allowed to police itself.”

The players doing the policing, known as enforcers, try to make sure that “The Code” isn’t broken. These are the players that have inspired the creation of websites like HockeyFights.com and HockeyFighters.com in recent years that attract thousands of fans every day. According to Bernstein, enforcers are often the most loved players on their teams. Some hockey enthusiasts believe enforcers play much of a role in their teams’ success, but Bernstein disagrees.

“Fighters, in my opinion, are like kickers and punters in the NFL,” he said. “They’re specialists and without them, you can’t win. Just like the kickers, they don’t get the same amount of respect, because they usually can’t skate as well as the other players. Nevertheless, they’re very important pieces to a championship team.”

However, while many have voiced their beliefs that there is indeed a place in the game for fighting, citing the nostalgia and history it has, Bernstein also believes that having enforcers to protect teammates makes the game safer.

“Many people don’t understand that in hockey, there are a series of checks and balances,” he said. “If you’re a player that likes to play dirty, your teammates won’t even want you around after a while. The way the code works is if someone isn’t held accountable for their actions and doesn’t ‘show up’ afterwards, his teammates won’t want him on the bench. As barbaric as it may seem, fighting cleans up the game.

“Where I live, the Minnesota Wild have Derek Boogaard as their enforcer. He’s 6-foot-7 and 270 pounds. He’s an animal. Without his presence, you wouldn’t see Marian Gaborik, Brian Rolston or Pavol Demitra scoring goals. If the opposition knows they can take liberties with those guys, they can’t win. Boogaard on your team gives them confidence and lets them get in front of the net and skate without fear of getting whacked.”

Probert too thinks things would be quite different on the ice if he and his fellow tough guys weren’t around in one way or another.

“There were times when players were going after Steve Yzerman and I had to go after them,” he said. “Sometimes though, there are just times when you look at someone the wrong way and you go at. There’s also the motivation factor, a big hit or a fight can definitely motivate your team and change the game. That’s what my job was.”

However, many of the leagues top tough guys like Chris Simon and Darren McCarty have had problems keeping up with some of the more talented players over the past few years, leading to an unusual amount of suspensions by the very people who were expected to police the game, many think their existence in the league may be running it’s course.

“What I think is happening is because of the new rule changes, a-la getting rid of the red line, the cutting down on obstructions and the salary cap, the way of the enforcer is slowly, but surely going the way of the dinosaur,” Bernstein said. “I don’t know if a Tony Twist would make it in today’s game. Even Tie Domi also retired very quietly. Guys like that are always the most popular players amongst their teammates, but they’re kind of a luxury that you can’t afford to keep.”

With the role of the enforcer changing and the league continuing to take steps to eliminate fighting from the game, Bernstein still doesn’t think fighting will stop altogether. Nevertheless, he feels a new kind of player will emerge and take its place.

“I think the agitators are the new wave,” Bernstein said. “In New York, you have a guy like Sean Avery. He’s a perfect example; he can play, he can hit, he’ll fight, he’ll turtle and he’ll draw penalties. He’s the new hybrid. He’s not a big lumbering Snuffaluffagus. He’s not going to take up space and come on the ice like a nuclear bomb when his buttons are pushed and beat the crap out of somebody. I think guys today have to take a regular shift and contribute, kill penalties and even be able to take a penalty shot at the end of a game if they had to.”

Although Bernstein is a fan of the rough stuff, he feels that the game will continue to have plenty of action even if the enforcers do become extinct.

“I like fighting and I think it serves a purpose, but I’m not a fan of gratuitous fighting you see when a team is down 5-1 and is trying to change the momentum of a meaningless game to sell tickets,” Bernstein said. “I like it when Jarome Ignila drops the gloves in the playoffs when it means something or when a player runs into a goaltender and you have to go. I love seeing the kind of emotion on the ice when you see two non-traditional fighters go.”

This type of responsibility, which forces hockey players to be accountable for their actions and for a select few to play peace keeper, is what Bernstein believes sets hockey apart from the rest of the sports world and preaches the ultimate team dichotomy and an end result that can’t be found anywhere else.

“Hockey is all about the team, sticking up for each other and growing a playoff beard,” he said. “You aren’t going to find that anywhere else.”

Despite the thoughts of people like Bernstein, McDonald wonders what will happen if the game continues to be censored the way it has been over the past five years.

“Referee Andy Van Hellemond was once quoted saying, ‘If we take fighting out of the game and the arenas are empty, how do we put them back in?” McDonald said. “I think a lot of cities are at the point where the game isn’t as entertaining as it used to be. If it’s not entertaining to the thousands in the arena and thousands more at home watching, it’s not entertaining. There were many nights at the end of my career when I was driving home where I wondered if it was just me, or was this sport really not entertaining any more?”

Posted under NHL

I’ve been working on an article about fighting in the NHL for a few weeks now and I figured I’d share something really special I got a few days ago. Enjoy!

For 17 seasons, Bob Probert was one of the toughest men in the NHL. However, he was much more than an enforcer, as the 6’3, 225 pound forward scored 163 goals over the course of his career, including two 20-goal seasons in 1988 and 1992. Chatting with TheDriveForFive.com, Probert talks about his career and the league that has changed so much since he left six seasons ago.

The Drive for Five: Over the past few years, the NHL has taken serious steps to eliminate fighting from the game. What do you think of that?

Bob Probert: I think that fighting will always be a part of the game regardless of what the leagues tries to do to cut down on it. It’s a part of the game that should always be there. It belongs in the game and keeps people honest; it also limits the amounts of cheap shots. Guys think twice about sticking someone if they know someone on the other team is going to come after them if they get too physical.

TDFF: Some people that watched you over the years have said that watching you fight was like poetry or art in motion. How does that make you feel?

Probert: It makes me feel great. I did it for many years and it’s something that I took as my job. I was also able to play hockey during that time, it just that I got very good at fighting. I guess I enjoyed it too to a certain extent.

TDFF: Aside from the fighting, what was your favorite part of playing hockey in the NHL?

Probert: I had an opportunity to play with Steve Yzerman one year and I had 29 goals. I was told by the coaches, “Hey Probie, don’t be fighting, stay out on the ice.” I also got 398 penalty minutes that year, so I didn’t really listen to the coaches that much. That’s just the way I played the game and that year, everything really came together for me. I got a chance to play my rough style, but also got a chance on the powerplay and to play with some great players. That was my favorite part of playing in the NHL.

TDFF: That year you had 29 goals [87-88], you also had a huge playoff series as well. What do you attribute to that?

Probert: I believe that was the year Stevie [Yzerman] got hurt, so I got a chance to play on the top line with guys like Petr Klima, John Chabot and Joe Murphy. Because Stevie was hurt, I got to play that much more and show everyone what I could do. I had a great playoffs that year and it was really fun. It’s fun when you can put some points on the board and be one of the key players on a team.

TDFF: I’ve heard stories over the years about what a good passer John Chabot was. Can you tell us a little about his game?

Probert: He was a great passer and playmaker. He was very similar to Adam Oates, but he was a bigger player and as far as hands go, they were great too. That’s why it’s easy to compare him to a guy like Oates. He was an absolute pleasure to play with.

TDFF: Your highlights on YouTube are quite extensive. Are there any ones that you are particularly proud of?

Probert: I think the couple I had with Tie Domi and the rematch with Troy Crowder still stick out in my mind, because they were widely publicized. I really wowed them there.

TDFF: Can you tell the people who don’t watch hockey why players fight?

Probert: There are plenty of reasons. There were times when players were going after Steve Yzerman and I had to go after them. There were also times when guys would come after me and give me a cheap shot and I would have to stick up for myself. Sometimes though, there are just times when you look at someone the wrong way and you go at it. Sometimes you knew before the game that this was someone you were going to have to fight and you figured why not get it over with. There are a lot of different reasons. There’s also the motivation factor, a big hit or a fight can definetly motivate your team and change the game. That’s what my job was.

TDFF: There aren’t many big time enforcers in the league anymore. Back when you played, there was at least one person on every team who was a lock for 200 penalty minutes. That just doesn’t happen anymore. With that being said, if you could fight one person in the NHL today, who would it be and why?

Probert: Probably Sean Avery. That’s a guy I would probably go after [laughing]. He gets under my skin just watching him play, so I’m sure if I was still playing he’s definitely someone I’d like to go with.

TDFF: For the fans that prefer a high-octane offensive game, how would you convince them that fighting still has a place in the game?

Probert: A lot of people growing up now didn’t have a chance to see the game in the ‘80s and didn’t get to see the sport the way I and so many people played it. Nowadays, the game is so much quicker and sometimes there aren’t even many hits. However, the team that won the Stanley Cup last season [Anaheim Ducks] was the most physical and if you ask me, that’s the reason why they won. In the end, it’s not really about fighting. It’s about being physical and team justice. Like I said before, you get a big hit and it can change the game. If you get an entire team playing physically, you can go places in the league.

Posted under Interviews, NHL