Fight

The Bob Gould Memorial Fight Corner: Safety Edition

Photo by Clyde Caplan

fight-graphicDetails: 5 March 2013, 17:09 1st period, vs. Boston

Kombatants: John Erskine (6-4, 220lb, 71 officially sanctioned hockeyfights.com hockey bouts) vs. Shawn “The Stereotype” Thornton 6-2, 2l7 lb, 110 officially sanctioned hockeyfights.com hockey bouts)

Analysis: No one can ever say that fights aren’t a terrible thing. You can blast away and throw bombs all day long like in Coxe/Probert and it never goes anywhere (well…it does eventually). Sometimes, though, if you get hit in just the right place at just the right time, it’s over. It happened to Milan Lucic. It happened to Donald Brashear. And it happened to poor David Dziurzynski just last night.

I think we forget sometimes just how dangerous this stuff is. I try to look on this stuff with an admittedly humorous bent, because I think it’s the only way I can deal with it sometimes.  Brashear wrecked his knee in that Belak fight. Dziurzynski has a concussion. I’m glad John Erskine is okay in the sense that he was able to come back and play. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified about how his future will be from a career of punches given and taken.

Please take care of yourself, John. And you too, Shawn.

Verdict: Fight goes to Thornton, because he has the same name as the main character in one of my all-time favorite movies. Impetuous. Homeric.

Ryan Cooper

RM Cooper is a writer for Capitals Outsider. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, and a fan of all its athletic teams, because the universe didn't hate him enough already by simply making him Caps fan.

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