Written by Chris Kuc at ChicagoTribune.com
Before he became the darling of hockey with his heartwarming tale surrounding last week’s NHL All-Star Game, John Scott was a polarizing figure in the league.
As the last of the game’s true enforcers, teammates revered Scott for protecting them on the ice while many fans who believe fighting should be eradicated from the game reviled him.
But here’s the thing about fighting and Scott: In recent seasons he had difficulty finding anyone willing to drop the gloves with him. During his stint with the Hawks from 2010-12, Scott often would bemoan the fact opponents would turn down his pugilistic requests.
“It has gotten even harder these days,” Scott, now with the Canadiens’ AHL affiliate, said last week. “It’s hard to find fights.”
That follows a trend in the NHL, where fighting is down 16 percent from a year ago at this time, 35 percent from two seasons ago and 40 percent from the 2012-13 season.
According to the NHL, through Feb. 4 there were a total of 212 fights in a combined 767 games for an average of 0.3 per contest. Through 767 games of the ’14-15 season, there were 259 1 fights (0.3 per game), through the same number of games in ’13-14 there were 332 () and 346 in ’12-13 (0.47).
Those rather dramatic decreases came despite neither the NHL nor its players association calling for an end to fighting or implementing major rules changes to discourage bouts.
A byproduct of more and more players wearing visors to protect their faces from flying pucks — and in turn flying fists — is a factor, but while both sides have worked diligently to discourage head shots in part to more awareness of concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), fisticuffs generally have been left alone.
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