Fighting is expected to be banned in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League starting next season.
according to a report by Le Journal de Quebec, The organization responsible for major junior hockey for the eastern part of the country is planning to introduce a new rule that will ban all legal fighting in the league when they hold a league-wide meeting in June.
“The QMJHL plans to enact a rule that will ban fighting, making it black and white that it is no longer a part of our sport,” a spokesman said from the league. “The punishment has not been decided yet. We would like to introduce a rule in June when the next general annual meeting of the members of the Board of Governors takes place.”
As recently as 2020, the QMJHL has attempted to impose more severe punishments for fighting in their league, adding 10 minutes of misconduct in addition to the five-minute major in-game penalty. The exact outcome is still to be decided if the fight takes place in a game during the 2023-24 season.
The movement to ban fighting in the QMJHL has been spearheaded by former NHL promoter and current Liberal Party member of the National Assembly of Quebec Enrique Ciccone. In 2020, Ciccone introduced a private member’s bill that would ban fighting in amateur sports in the province, except for those involved in combat sports.
“As you know, things have changed over the years and society has changed, and we have numbers, we also have scientific reports that[show]the damage it can do to your brain,” Ciccone said. told CBC Radio in October 2020,
“We just want to try to work forward to make sure these kids don’t go through what I went through, what a lot of my peers went through. … It’s not about taking off your gloves.” It happened 20 years ago, it was a part of the game. Not anymore,” he said.
Quebec has already banned fighting in most of its hockey leagues, but not the QMJHL, so this potential adjustment to the rules from the league would be a monumental step.
Other leagues in the Canadian Hockey League – the Ontario Hockey League and the Western Hockey League – have also introduced more severe penalties for fighting, but have not started any talk of a stricter ban.
The OHL has a three-fight rule that began in 2016. After three fights, a player is suspended two games for each subsequent fight, with almost every player having three strikes to use for the season before being suspended.
The WHL, on the other hand, has no potential suspension or fighting limit, but instead requires players to keep their helmets on if a fight occurs.
We’ve seen fighting become less and less integral to the game over the years, as the NHL has become more skill-based and teams prefer to dress players who can score goals on their fourth line, rather than physical aspects. Attain excellence. Play.
This is done naturally as a way to win more hockey games, but is this the first step towards seeing stricter restrictions on fighting throughout the game? Will we soon think of fighting in hockey as a barbaric act of the past?
