Hit Somebody¹

by Caitlynn Martinez-McWhorter

There is no athlete quite like the hockey enforcer, a man and a role viewed alternately as noble and barbaric, necessary and regrettable.

–John Branch (The New York Times)

1st Line² – Home

My father built a hockey rink in the backyard every winter out of plastic tarps and two-by-fours. I was never a very good skater, and an awkward stick handler. I spent most of my time those winters after school lying on my back on the cold, hard ice, staring up at the sky, daydreaming. I’d lie there for hours, as snow fell upon my hand-me-down coat and snow pants. I often stayed well past the moment at which I could no longer feel my fingers or toes, needing to prove a certain toughness or ruggedness, if only to myself.  

2nd Line – Home

At the first professional hockey game I ever attended, I witnessed a beautiful brawl. Afterward, the jumbo-tron showed a close up of the worse-for-ware player. He was kneeling on the ice, bent over, spitting into a puddle of bright crimson blood on the pristine, white surface of the ice. He rubbed at his mouth a little, and a few seconds later he spit two teeth into the puddle before picking them up, along with his carelessly tossed gloves, and skating away. I could hear my mother in the seat next to me gag at the image—but I could not take my eyes off of the screen.

1st Line – Visitors

My brother Joey and I used to play with my father’s Bobby Hull hockey game from the late 1960’s. Joey eventually lost the pucks, and the game no longer functioned. Even so, I still often took out the game to admire it. I’d place a flat aluminum player in my hands, his sharp edges almost cutting my skin, nearly drawing blood — a child’s toy unsafe for children. Players on this game board, much like a foosball table, were not able to touch one another. By design, they could not fight or check one another into the boards. This disappointed my child-self greatly. I looked begrudgingly toward a future filled with softened edges.

2nd Line – Visitors

Fans opposed to this remnant of an older game, disgusted by the unworthy “goons” put on the ice alongside players with quick strides and quicker hands, roar with snarky comments after a muffed play by a player known more for his physicality than his offence. “Woof,” is probably my favorite of their jabs at an enforcer. ³ It is their way of saying these players are no more than fighting dogs. Not men, but beasts. These fans fear for the safety of the players with skill, the ones whose soft and agile hands were made for playmaking—forehand, backhand, pass, shoot — rather than fisticuffs — left hook, left hook, right uppercut.

3rd Line – Home

My favorite player takes the ice for warm ups without a helmet. He is young and cocky, thinking himself invincible. He boasts about being 26 years old and still possessing all of his own teeth, a rarity in his profession, and particularly for an enforcer.

I’m on edge when he jumps the boards, focusing impatiently on his hands, waiting to see him shake off his gloves, pull up his sleeves, raise his fists, and begin the dance. In these moments, I am deeply attracted to

the man on the ice in a way I have not otherwise known. Though handsome, the attraction is not a sexual one. Instead, in those moments, I have the urge to be him. I crave the physicality, but for reasons I cannot explain. 

4th Line – Home

I’m intrigued by the role of the enforcer, because I understand it. There is a part of me that witnesses an injustice for which, in the heat of the moment, the only response I can comprehend is physical retaliation. There is a very real and very worrisome part of me that wants to bash a skull in, creating shards of bone shaped like the broken fragments of a ceramic coffee mug dropped on the cold kitchen floor. I burry this part deep inside, for it is crazy to acknowledge that we are animals, all of us, and that our bodies desire a fight.

3rd Line – Visitors

Derek Boogaard, a former NHL enforcer, died in 2011 before his 29th birthday. It is indisputable that he died of a mixture of prescription drugs and alcohol, but the controversy surrounding his death is that many believe his drug and alcohol use was the result of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE affects individuals with a history of multiple blows to the head, a hazard of the job faced by all hockey players (and numerous other athletes), but most specifically the enforcers like Boogaard. The disease manifests itself in symptoms such as memory loss, aggression, confusion, and depression. Within the four months that followed Boogaard’s death, two other NHL enforcers, Belak and Rypien, died from what were labeled suicides. They were 35 and 27 years old, respectively.

4th Line – Visitors

As the game evolved from one where each player did it all—score, hit, fight—to a game where certain star players were more skilled, the role of the enforcer became necessary. Someone needed to protect the teams’ investments. They became the bodyguards of the ice, taking justice into their own hands, deterring the crimes against their teammates more than the fear of the ref’s whistle ever could. But the game is forever fluid, and as it has begun to morph again, this time into one based on speed, the enforcer’s days are numbered.

MAJOR PENALTY. FIGHTING.⁴

Power Play⁶

For years, two factions of the hockey world have been facing off. They pose the question: Does fighting still have a place in the game?

MAJOR PENALTY. FIGHTING.
MINOR PENALTY.
INSTIGATING.⁵

Penalty Kill⁷

For me, this is not the important question. Instead, I want to know: Why do we cling so tightly, so automatically, to the violence?