Sports Justice: The Law and the Business of Sports

Chapter 7: Sticks are Swinging, But Is It a Crime?

STICKSßAREßSWINGING ßBUTßISßITßAßCRIME Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept. doug larson A puck is a hard rubber disc that hockey players strike when they can’t hit one another. jimmy cannon  • • • previous page The Boston Bruins dedicated their 1970 Stanley Cup victory to Teddy Green, the team’s warrior on ice until he was injured by a slash from Wayne Maki’s hockey stick. ap Photo Wayne Maki and Ted Green were rough, tough hockey players. They performed as the fans of the sport expected, with reckless disregard for their own bodies and their opponents’ physical well-being. Green had been an all-star in the National Hockey League, having played with the Boston Bruins for almost a decade at the time of the brutal incident that almost took his life and led to two criminal trials. Maki, on the other hand, had been up and down between the minor leagues and the nhl. He was trying to catch on with the Vancouver Canucks for the 1969–70 season when he engaged in a confrontation with Green during a preseason game. In his autobiography, High Stick, Green relates his version of what happened that night on the ice in Ottawa, Canada, and the truly remarkable tale of his return to the game. Green’s narrative presents the Canadian version of a Horatio Alger story: a small-town boy who played hockey from age seven, progressed through multiple levels of the amateur sport, grew in strength and size until eventually he reached the professional ranks where he achieved all-star status. Green’s forte was his aggressive defense work accompanied by a penchant—even an appetite—for fighting at the drop of a glove. His well-earned nickname was “Terrible Teddy.” Green seemed to spend almost as many minutes in the penalty box as he did on the ice. Any offensive player entering Green’s corner of the ice would be guaranteed an assault. Green played the game aggressively. Green was not alone in his attitude toward playing the game of hockey. A pastime born on the frozen ponds of Canada, ice hockey was derived from English field hockey and the Irish game of hurling. James G. Creighton formulated the rules of modern ice hockey while studying engineering at McGill University, and in 1875 the first game was played under Creighton’s rules at Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. According to a wire dispatch from the Kingston Daily British Whig, the game ended in a brawl: “Shins and heads were battered, benches smashed, and the lady spectators fled in confusion .” The sport became an obsession with Canadian youth, who played it as soon as they could walk. Since the 1930s, “Hockey Night in Canada” on the Canadian Broadcasting Company network has accumulated that nation ’s highest radio and television ratings. 122 • • • sports justice The men of Canada are generally appreciated for their calm demeanor and their ability to survive in a sometimes harsh physical environment. A remarkable change occurs, however, when it comes to a brutal body check delivered to an opposing player who has touched the puck. Fights break out during the normal course of a hockey game, symptoms of a passionate and masculine culture of aggression that is considered part of the sport. The game is stopped while the referees allow the fisticuffs to proceed. The only saving grace is that, while skating on ice, players normally lack sufficient traction to do too much damage to an opponent. The sticks that players carry to maneuver the puck, however, can do significant injury when used as weapons, as was the case when Wayne Maki attacked Ted Green. From its earliest days, hockey proved a crowd-pleaser because of its rowdiness , and the game quickly spread south of the Canadian border to the United States. Entrepreneur Albert Spalding was the first to bring hockey equipment to the general public. His 1898 Spalding Ice Hockey and Ice Polo Guide, among the earliest texts on hockey, promoted the sport as having “that purely American outburst of effort known as ‘boom.’” The Guide assured its readers that the game did not have the roughness or danger of lacrosse or polo: “[T]he time [of the game] is employed in brilliant rushes, quick checking and clever passes.” Contact within bounds was always acceptable, however: “A successful hockey player...