42nd National Hockey League All-Star Game - The War On Fighting

The War On Fighting

The 42nd classic was broadcast not only in the U.S. and Canada, but for soldiers abroad fighting in Operation Desert Storm, and players wore decals on their helmets as a symbolic gesture of support. However, some, like Wayne Gretzky (whose grandfather was a veteran of World War I and whose cousin was abroad at the time), called for the game to be canceled. Gretzky, however, was more adamant on the state of fighting in the NHL, saying that he was continually tired of sportscasters stating that "it looks like a hockey game out there" when a bench-clearing brawl takes place in other sports.

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Famous quotes containing the words war and/or fighting:

    Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.
    Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

    There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.
    Philip Caputo (b. 1941)