By Montague McAuliffe

There have always been people complaining about violence in hockey.

I've often heard these people say, "Hockey players do things on the ice which the rest of us would be thrown in jail for." That's not a problem. They're entitled to their opinion, as long as National Hockey League officials don't listen.

Hockey is a violent sport, no matter how you look at it. I grew up playing the game and it's a miracle all of my front teeth are still in place. I've had confrontations with people bigger than me and smaller than me. I once told a guy who kept waving his stick in my face that if he didn't keep this stick down, I was going to make him eat it. I'm not normally a violent person, but a little toughness convinced my opponent to keep his stick away from my face.

This is a part of the game anti-fighting activists don't understand. There is a difference between rough, tough hockey and dirty hockey. Anyone who has never been hit in the face with a hockey stick has no idea why tempers flare the way they do and their opinions should be considered as nothing more than hot air.

In the November issue of Chatelaine magazine, there is an article in the midst of make-up tips and stories about how to be a better parent which suggests hockey breeds aggressive behaviour -- especially in young men toward women. The story focuses on a junior hockey player, who had some trouble dealing with his celebrity status and was charged with sexually assaulting his girlfriend. Sexual assault or any assault off the ice should not be condoned, but there is no reason to subject the whole game to the judgement of one person's actions.

Simply put, this author is just another woman looking for a way to bash hockey and she found it. She speaks of no-checking leagues leading to more well-spoken and better-adjusted children. It seems clear the woman who wrote this article doesn't understand what a dirty hockey player really is. If this woman played the game and got hit over the head with a hockey stick a few times and still came up with the same opinion, then maybe I'd listen.

There are going to be jerks in the game of hockey. Unfortunately, there will be sexual offenders and there will be people who have bad reputations. However, there isn't a whole lot of body contact in baseball, yet there are players like Wil Cordero who has been charged with beating not one, but two wives, and Roberto Alomar who spits on umpires but has just been awarded a four-year, $32-million contract.

However, such tendencies are not restricted to sports. I wonder if Tommy Lee and his Motley Crew had non-checking band practices. A short while ago the lead singer was filmed spitting on his own bodyguard and we've all heard about Lee's episodes with his two-time wife Pamela Anderson Lee.

It doesn't matter which sport or occupation you speak about, there are going to be people who don't know how to handle their status in society. But for all those who can't there are many who can.

Big, tough hockey players like Brendan Shanahan of the Detroit Red Wings supports the Alzheimer's Society and now-retired Cam Neely of the Boston Bruins has set up housing so families of cancer patients can travel to Boston to support loved ones going through treatment.

But things like this are only given a fleeting glimpse by the non-hockey-loving media. Hockey is constantly criticized for its violent behaviour. It seems like every time someone has something negative to say about a sport the bandwagon fills up. Maclean's magazine's cover story Nov. 9 was Thugs on Ice. For a so-called "national magazine" you would think it would come up with a little originality. I'm not sure about the background of the man who wrote the article, but Bob Levin, the columnist following the story, is a prime indication of where this simple-minded nonsense comes from.

He confesses he grew up playing baseball and basketball, two sports I played a little bit growing up, and I know they don't evoke tempers like hockey does. He calls fighting barbaric and says it corrupts an otherwise great game. Again, I think Levin needs some personal experience before he can be taken seriously.

There is a problem in hockey. There are way too many hockey players, like Cam Neely, who have lost their careers because of bad hits or Paul Kariya, who lost an opportunity to play for Canada in the Olympics, while the guy who cross-checked him across the head ventured to Japan to play for the American team.

I think new senior vice-president and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell is on the right track by suspending players who use possible career-ending hits or high sticks. If he really wants to clean up hockey, he should go one step further and suspend players for the duration of time their victims miss. That will teach professional hockey players to have respect for their opponents.

Fighting has nothing to do with disrespect. Take fighting out of the game and watch non-fighting jerks like Claude Lemieux and Ulf Samuelsson run the NHL. These guys wouldn't think twice about ruining a superstar, if there are no tough guys to answer to. The big guys are needed to protect the more skilled players. For anyone who doesn't appreciate the benefits of having a so-called goon on your team, ask Wayne Gretzky who Dave Semenko is.