by Tom Helm
Contributing Writer

For a many people in the United States, fighting is a major reason why hockey appeals to them. Sometimes, the value of entertainment in a good fight is how a lot of people eventually learn to love the sport, because it really is a beautiful game.

No other game combines the awesome speed and the grace that hockey does.

The same big six-foot-two-inches, 200-pound right wingers that violently slam their bodies into six-foot-two-inches, 200-pound left wingers into the boards to regain control of the puck can also turn on a dime, gliding on the ice like a figure skater.

There’s also the stick handling, crisp passes, highlight real goals and dramatic saves by the goalie.

In this city, because we have don’t have a National Hockey League (NHL) team yet, hockey is mostly a novelty sport. The Seattle Thunderbirds is the closet thing we have to a major professional hockey turkey. Typically, games against the Portland Winter Hawks are most popular due to the two teams’ historic, heated rivalry with each other. Sellout crowds are the norm when Portland comes into town because there’s a good chance that there might be a fight or two.

For example, at the end of a game in Portland on October 20, the two teams squared off for a line brawl (where all the players on the ice, pair off and fight), including a rare center ice exchange between the two goalies.

Since it was the first meeting between Portland and Seattle, the two teams wanted to set the tone with each other early in the season.

This isn’t a promotion for fighting in hockey, there’s a reason for all of this.

“Fighting is a good thing because it’s a protection device with players that size and that fast with a weapon in their hand,” said Sean Runnels, Account Executive for the Seattle Thunderbirds. “It’s a system of check and balances to prevent more serious injuries, things like cheap shots, that’s how most the players look at it. Plus it’s a tone setter.”

Hockey would be a more dangerous game if fighting wasn’t allowed.

Protection isn’t necessarily the only reason. Sometimes, a fight occurs when one team is down by a couple of goals and they’ll use a fight to turn the momentum around and to get their team going, or perhaps if one team is down by an enormous amount of goals, they’ll fight out of frustration.

The Thunderbirds don’t actively promote fighting. Their stance is that they don’t support it, but they’re not against it and it is a recognized part of the game.

And it definitely sells tickets.