Off Wing Opinion: Grappling With “The Code”

February 3rd, 2007 by chuq

Off Wing Opinion: Grappling With “The Code”

Off Wing Opinion: Grappling With “The Code”:

Eric responds to my comments on “the code” with some good questions:

What about Major League Baseball? Didn’t Ozzie Guillen blow a gasket just last season when one of his pitchers refused to retaliate in a beanball exchange? That pitcher, Sean Tracey, was demoted to the minor leagues after the incident.

If any hockey player failed to come through the way that Tracey did for the White Sox, I don’t have any doubt he’d be on a shuttle bus back to the AHL — perhaps even before the game ended.

Point taken, although “the code” in baseball is a fading relic. Guillen is definitely an old-style player-turned-manager, so I’m not surprised, but if you look back to how the league did things back in the 60′s, you’ll see “the code” is a whisper of what it used to be in baseball; chalk it up, among other things, to MLB putting the “warning both teams” with ejections into the rules and the designated hitter (one of the classic tactics of the code, throwing at the opposing pitcher who threw at you, can’t happen when they don’t bat).

Elsewhere in his post, Chuqui also mentions how offensive lineman won’t retaliate after seeing their quarterback suffer a late hit. True enough, we don’t see lineman taking things into their own hands like that. But do we really want to believe that nobody ever has?

Denver Broncos defensive tackle Gerard Warren prefers not to discuss the misery in those stacks of flailing arms and legs as players grab and grope for the ball.

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In light of information like that, a stand-up fight can seem awfully civilized, can’t it?

Very true, and in reality, I worded that badly; I didn’t mean to imply that stuff doesn’t happen. It does. It does in hockey, too, with “careless” sticks and certain players who are masters of that technique, plus the normal whacks to the hands, whacks to the feet, whacks to sticks (especially composite ones, hoping to create a weak spot so it’ll break when put under stress, like during a slap shot), whacks to calves, elbows along the boards… There are lots of small things that go on on a regular basis in any scrum or group of players — think about how a glove smells, and how much fun it is to have one stuffed in your nose…

What I intended to say wasn’t that other leagues are clean. But what differentiates hockey from both baseball and football here is that hockey coaches, hockey players, various hockey influencers (like don cherry) — and even GMs and owners — will call for the referees to stop getting in the way and let the players “handle it via the code”. (in a mostly related aspect, you don’t ever hear someone talking about football and saying things like “if it’s holding in the first quarter, it should be holding in the fourth….” or “the referees should stop calling minor stuff in the fourth period and let the boys play”)

To a non-fan (and probably to many hockey fans), this isn’t “letting the boys play”, it’s formal encouragement of vigilantism and thuggery.

In baseball and football, the code exists, just as it does in hockey. But in baseball and football, you don’t see people involved in the league claiming that the sport would be better if the referees just got out of the way and let players enforce the code. In baseball and football (and basketball) fights happen, scraps happen. In hockey, they sign fighters to contracts.

And that’s a HUGE difference. And it’s the difference that keeps hockey on the 11PM local sports geek watch.

The instigator is a rule that is in many ways the difference between teams having someone like Dave Brown on the roster and having guys like Georges LaRaque.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not endorsing what we’re seeing here — something I thought I made clear in the last two lines of my first post on this topic. What I am trying to do is understand the game and see if for what it really is. And the conclusion I’m coming to, one that I’ve hinted at before, is that no matter what team sport we watch, we tend to sanitize what we see lest we realize just how horrible it can really be at times.

Perhaps hockey’s problem isn’t that it’s rituals and mores are more violent, perhaps it’s just that the folks who market other sports do a better job of bleaching that violence out in the wash.

The rituals exist in every sport. The code exists pretty much anywhere two or more people compete (even duels; especially duels). But in football, enforcement of the code is at the bottom of a pile where cameras can’t go. In baseball, enforcement of the code leads to a bruise on someone’s butt; in extreme cases, a rib. In hockey, enforcement of the code, it seems, means we have to stop the game while two guys take off their gear and beat the crap out of each other. And there are enough guy’s like Cherry out there claiming that’s how it OUGHT to be.

Me? I’m claiming the code needs to be enforced within the context of the game. You hit my batter, I hit you (or your batter). You clip my superstar, your superstar will find my elbow in his nose. you touch my goalie, I run yours. twice. I’m not suggesting any of the grit, intensity or emotion be taken out of the game. Just the gladiator contests. And that’s why the instigator is a step forward for the league; it’s a conscious move away from thuggery to hockey, because it’s designed to encourage teams to think in terms using the game to get even. Unfortunately, the “old school” types really prefer simply beating people up. After all, it’s manly. And a great way to get on the 11PM local news (while the local talking head smirks)