When This Gull Gets Going, the Going Gets Very Tough : Hockey: Steve Martinson either wears a badge of courage or a scarlet letter for his role as an enforcer.

Cross the Terminator with Rambo on skates, and herein lies the image of Steve Martinson, the Gulls’ toughest player.

At the height of the Gulf War, a group of feisty hockey fans hung a banner in the Sports Arena with this cryptic message: “End the War Early, Send Martinson to Iraq.” He wasn’t amused.

Martinson, the Gulls’ rough-and-tumble left wing, is an eight-year veteran of professional hockey and a proven tough guy.

His label as a fighter is one that developed early and followed him through three minor leagues and the National Hockey League.

It’s a label he accepts, albeit grudgingly.

“I have a temper,” said Martinson, who leads the Gulls with 238 penalty minutes in 45 games. “A lot of it is reputation. Guys like to challenge me. Once you’re tagged as a fighter, it’s a tough label to shake. But I won’t go after someone just because I’m looking for a fight. I’m not that kind of player.”

It is that kind of game. Fighting is a way of life.

“You can’t eliminate fighting from hockey,” said Gull General Manager Don Waddell, who didn’t fight during his playing days. “The last three years, with the rules changes, they’ve cut way down on bench-clearing brawls, and penalty minutes are way down in the NHL. You can go an entire game without seeing a fight. In today’s society, a lot more people don’t like to see fights, but some are always going to want to see them.”

According to the players, fans repulsed by a fight are far outnumbered by the ones who respond to it.

“Look at the applause meter,” Martinson said. “See how loud they cheer when the guy wins a fight. That’s a good indicator. They like it. They don’t want to come out and see 10 fights, but they like to see a good one now and then.”

Fans might appreciate and applaud it, but defenseman Steve Dykstra said circumstances, not fan demand, dictate how much fighting will take place.

“This isn’t the (World Wrestling Federation),” he said. “We’re not doing it to entertain the crowd.”

When he played for the Pittsburgh Penguins in November 1988, Dykstra earned headlines after a game against the New York Rangers in which defenseman David Shaw struck Penguin center Mario Lemieux with a stick. Lemieux suffered a bruised sternum.

After the game, which Pittsburgh lost, Dykstra told reporters: “The next time we play New York, (Shaw’s) dead. And if he doesn’t have the courage to dress, I’ll get him in the stands.”

That little outburst resulted in warnings from the Pennsylvania district attorney’s office and a closed-door meeting with NHL President John Ziegler.

Like much of the verbal taunting and trash-talk in which the players engage, Dykstra, who wasn’t fined for the incident, said it was much ado about nothing.

“People were talking like I was going to take a gun and shoot him,” Dykstra said. “But all I meant was if I got a chance, I’d go after him. It was more said out of frustration after the loss.”

Gull forward Robbie Nichols (42 games, 180 penalty minutes) is known for his ability to draw clever penalties, the ones other players might not get away with. He had a similar verbal barrage with Rick Hayward of Phoenix earlier in the year.

After a particularly raucous game in San Diego, Hayward told Nichols the next time he came to Phoenix, Hayward would “kill him.”

“Rick and I have been at each other all year,” Nichols said with a laugh. “He gets under my skin and I get under his. He just got mad at me. It was blown way out of proportion. There’s a lot of yapping going back and forth, but not a lot of bloodshed.”

It’s not always all talk and no action.

--Martinson fractured his ankle and missed 18 games this fall after a fight against Steve Jaques of Phoenix.

--Gull defenseman Dave Korol damaged his eye orbit and missed eight games after a fight against Jaques on Feb. 16, in which Jaques broke his finger on the punch.

Not one to ever back down, Martinson was slapped with a roughing penalty his first game back. Three games later, he incurred 24 minutes of penalties, including two misconducts against Phoenix.

Martinson said he respects his opponents and is aware of the physical harm they could do to him. Only foolish or rookie players take to the ice all swagger and no fear.

“I started off fearless,” he said. “I didn’t know how to defend myself. I learned the hard way--I got hurt. You have to have a certain amount of fear, and respect for what they can do to you.”

The reasons for fighting range from the game’s flow and its equipment, to the confines of the rink.

“We’re carrying around lethal weapons (sticks) and some guys use them for things other than what they’re for,” Dykstra said.

Martinson is one of a handful of Americans on the Gull roster and one of the few to come from a college, not a junior hockey background--where most of the Canadian players develop. He said continuous play breeds fighting in hockey.

“You put 22 football players on a field for 40 minutes without a whistle, and I think you’d see a lot of fights,” he said.

Defenseman Al Tuer, second only to Martinson in penalty minutes, said a player can feel like a caged animal when he’s checked hard against the boards.

“The rinks are bigger in Europe,” Tuer said. “Here, get a guy backed into a tight corner and there’s a good possibility he’ll come out fighting.”

But how do they explain the wide discrepancy in penalty minutes from game to game? On Oct. 6, the Gulls and Salt Lake produced 208 minutes of penalties. On Nov. 22, against Muskegon (Mich.), the Gulls and Lumberjacks played 60 minutes without a penalty.

Waddell said the tone of the game is established in the opening 10 minutes. Sometimes, it’s established even earlier. Bad blood or unfinished business from a previous game can put teams or individuals at odds with each other from the onset.

“Sometimes you have a score to settle,” said Martinson, who believes anyone but a friend is fair game if the situation warrants it. “Sometimes if I see something in warm up, if they don’t stop, I’ll go after them.”

Coach Mike O’Connell, a non-fighter in his playing days, said out-of-control fighting hurts a team.

“You get penalized for it,” he said. “So you’re not doing the team much good sitting in the penalty box.”

O’Connell won’t send his players out on the ice to fight, but some coaches do.

“I’ve had coaches who would tell me to go after someone,” said Martinson. “In Hershey (Bears of the American Hockey League), I set a record for penalty minutes. All I was doing was fighting, but I wasn’t enjoying it. They were using me for fighting.”

Martinson had 432 minutes of penalties in 69 games in Hershey in 1985-86, but he has proven he can score goals, not just direct hits. At St. Cloud State (Minn.), Martinson still is fifth in all-time scoring, besides holding records for the most career and season penalty minutes.

“We don’t bring players in with the intention of fighting for us,” Waddell said. “I like to call it aggressiveness. I don’t like fighting. But you’re not going to have 18-20 scorers on a team and you can’t have 20 small guys. As a manager, you don’t want a team that’s going to be pushed around and intimidated. So you want to have two or three guys that can play tough and be helpful that way.”

Tuer can be helpful that way, but he insists his role goes beyond flexing and snarling for opponents.

“I guess some would call me a goon,” Tuer said. “But that’s not my only responsibility. I have to play shifts and kill penalties.”

And protect the innocent. One of the responsibilities of a fighter is to make sure the meek don’t get in harm’s way.

It is the responsibility of Gull center Larry Floyd to get the puck into the net, not look over his shoulder to see who might be hassling him.

“Larry’s on my line,” Martinson said. “If someone does something to him, I’ll let them know they can’t pick on him.”

Phoenix Coach Ralph Backstrom spoke for many when he said there’s no room in today’s game for goons; players must do many things well, and one thing expectionally well.

“In our league, you only dress 16 players and two goalies,” he said. “You can’t afford to have someone who’s just a fighter.”

Tom Berry, president of the International Hockey League, said people who question the delicate relationship between the game and fighting need to understand some things.

“Fans have to know it’s allowed by the rules,” Berry said. “The governors are the ones who allow it. The philosophy behind the allowance of it is there’s more constant contact than physical contact and the players are well protected from the pucks and the sticks.”

Rules changes and high-profile NHL players, such as Wayne Gretzky and Brett Hull, speaking out against fighting have helped decrease it.

“One-on-one (fighting) is permissible,” Berry said. “But we’ve restricted the kind of behavior that leads up to bench-clearing brawls. The punishment fits the crime.”

The third-man-in rule, established 18 years ago, applies to any third party getting involved in a one-on-one situation. Along with the rules that govern secondary altercations and players coming off the bench--established three years ago--they have kept major fighting at a minimum.

“We haven’t had a brawl this year,” Berry said. “In fact, we haven’t had one since the rule was instigated. The rules governing secondary fights and players coming off the bench have pretty severe penalties that have almost eliminated them from the game.”

The first player coming off the bench to join a fight is automatically slapped with a 10-game suspension, without pay. The coach gets a five-game suspension and the club is fined $10,000.

“So it’s a very expensive move to make,” he said.

College hockey has demonstrated the game can be played with less fighting, but you just can’t ask a veteran fighter to turn back time and stop cold turkey.

“I’ve been doing this for too many years,” said Martinson. “If I stopped fighting, I’d have to quit hockey.”