COMMENTARY : NON-STOP : Recent Rulings on Violent Incidents Seem to Show That National Hockey League Is Afraid to Fight Real Culprit

Rick Tocchet of the Philadelphia Flyers received a 10-game suspension this week for gouging the left eye of the New York Islanders’ Dean Chynoweth.

Chynoweth, lying on the ice, was heard to scream in agony when his eye was raked by Tocchet’s hand. Out of action with a bruised cornea, Chynoweth cannot participate in contact for at least a month.

David Shaw of the New York Rangers was assessed a 12-game suspension for swinging his stick at Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux, striking Lemieux in the chest. Although Lemieux lay on the ice for five minutes, he was not seriously injured and was back two nights later, scoring two goals in a victory over Vancouver.

Brian O’Neill, the NHL executive vice president who handles on-ice discipline, was asked to explain the disparity in the two sentences and his reply made it plain that his decisions merely followed league guidelines.

“It’s not fair to compare the situations,” O’Neill said. “One resulted from a fight that was carried to an extreme we consider unacceptable. The other resulted from a stick foul and regulations were set out at the beginning of this season to the effect that stick fouls would not be tolerated.”

There can be little complaint with the punishment issued to Shaw. Although he initially was cross-checked by Lemieux, that was a relatively common, mild foul. A wild, two-handed swing in retaliation cannot be permitted. After all, had the blow landed a few feet higher, in the throat, Lemieux could have been killed.

However, Tocchet’s sentence and the rationalization for it bring us to the heart of what is wrong with the National Hockey League. If Tocchet had tried to remove Chynoweth’s eye from its socket in a restaurant, for example, he might wind up spending a couple of years behind bars, unless he had an especially clever lawyer.

But to NHL minds, his act was merely the result of a fight, “carried to an extreme.” And fights, as those whose hockey knowledge is limited to late-night film clips, have become an NHL trademark.

NHL President John Ziegler repeatedly defends fighting in hockey as an outlet for frustration. Without it, he claims, players would be swinging their sticks to get even. So what did Shaw do, when he swung his stick? He confirmed that the NHL’s argument is hogwash.

The NHL tolerates fighting because it fears that without it, a lot of those so-called fans who leap to their feet cheering an exchange of punches would stop buying tickets.

If that is the case -- and it’s questionable at best -- why not have each team supply a goon to fight between periods, so that lengthy sweater-pulling wrestling matches would not detract from the game itself?

Lemieux had no complaints about Shaw’s penalty, but he said, “The NHL has to do something about the violence in hockey and do it soon.”

Mike Bossy, recently retired, echoed those sentiments: “Violence is part of the NHL. If they wanted to get rid of it, they could have done it long ago. Suspensions are one thing, but something has to be done at a higher level. Whatever they’re doing isn’t enough.”

Acceptance of fighting as a normal part of the game leads to violence in other forms. A player who can’t physically whip a bigger tormentor will use his stick instead -- or wait for a chance to ram him into the glass from behind. Teams hire big, unskilled players to protect those with talent and, too often, a legitimate check on a scoring star is considered reason for assault.

Anyone who saw the 1987 Canada Cup knows what a wonderful contact sport hockey can be without the fighting, wrestling, gouging, butting, etc. Perhaps some day that message may get across to the powers who run the NHL.

Certainly, the word that stick fouls will not be tolerated has not reached the playing ranks. After Shaw was sentenced, O’Neill emphasized the league’s determination to end the abuse of sticks.

That night, three players were ejected for flagrant stick fouls -- Claude Lemieux of Montreal and Brian Benning and Mike Bullard of St. Louis. They obviously were not concerned with the NHL crackdown.

Perhaps they might have had different thoughts if the NHL were committed to elimination of all kinds of violence, to exterminate fighting and stop the dangerous checks into the glass from behind. It’s time to make players learn how to really check somebody and restore the blueline blast that forces a player to skate with his head up.

Fighting need not be legislated out. All the NHL has to do is borrow from common law the stipulation that when somebody who is attacked defends himself, he is not liable to punishment. Why should a player who finds a punch headed his way receive a five-minute sentence for swinging back?

Think how quickly fighting would disappear if the instigator not only had to risk a pugilistic defeat, but also the embarrassment of going to the penalty box by himself.

Tocchet, in protesting his innocence, claimed that he had been involved in “90 or 100 fights” and never had been suspended. Perhaps it was inevitable that in the 91st or 101st he would push aside the constraints of civilization and resort to animalistic tendencies.

Too many NHL players are acting like animals these days. It’s time for the NHL to ask itself what it is promoting, sport or mayhem.