THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 5, 1994 TAG: 9412050119
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
The NHL remains on strike, but as long as the Hampton Roads Admirals are playing, we won't soon forget what attracts some people to ice hockey.
``Hockey's the only place where a guy can go nowadays,'' writer Frank Deford once observed, ``and watch two white guys fight.''
Saturday in Charlotte, the game between the Admirals and Checkers was riddled with penalties, cheap shots and fights.
Of course, saying that a pro hockey game is riddled with fights is like saying that a rock concert is riddled with guitar music. You can't have one without the other.
At most hockey games, the greatest excitement in the building is over brawls. Gloves hit the ice, sweaters are pulled, heads begin banging. The referees don't get involved until the combatants are punched out - and the fans have screamed themselves hoarse.
Fights are never an interruption to a hockey game. They are an important part of the show.
``If you can't beat 'em in the alley,'' goes the hockey saw, ``you can't beat 'em on the ice.''
But you could say the same about pro football, which is fought in the trenches by men trained to break bones and tear cartilage. And how many football games are marked by full-scale fights?
Hockey fights reveal something important about the sport. They tell us that the game is not enough to hold interest. Something else is needed. Hockey without fists doesn't quite satisfy.
To survive, hockey must tap into that part of the sports audience that thrills to the sight of two guys whaling away at one another.
For hockey, violence is a promotional tool. On many teams, the enforcers, heavy-hitters and goons are more popular than the players who can actually skate and handle a stick.
As for the fights, they are closer in character to pro wrassling than alley brawls. Rarely is anyone seriously hurt. At times, the dust-ups look choreographed. At other times, comical.
But the fights bring a focus to hockey that the back-and-forth monotony of the game cannot.
The Admirals may not be any worse than any other team when it comes to endorsing violence. Certainly, their fans are no more bloodthirsty than any others.
If, sometimes, the Admirals are perceived as troublemakers, it may have something to do with their cartoon of a coach.
With his white hair and beet-red face, John Brophy is hard to ignore, whether he is raging at officials, threatening to climb over the glass to get at an opposing coach, or embarrassing his team.
Last Wednesday, after a loss at Scope, he sent his Admirals back onto the ice to skate sprints for 15 minutes.
The players' punishment was followed by another - a loud and lengthy Brophy harangue.
Saturday, the Admirals lost again. But not without a fight.
Not without several fights, followed by loud locker-room trash talking from both coaches.
Next time Charlotte and the Admirals meet, the rhetoric will be remembered. Saturday's brawls will be the focal point, because hockey without fights doesn't quite satisfy.
The game rarely is enough. by CNB