Pummelling anyone is not OK anywhere

Re: “No room for violence,” Editorial, Sept. 24.

Incredulous! How else to describe a major newspaper editorial board supporting violence in sport. To have actually printed, “There can be no allowance for violence off the playing field or outside the ice arena, lest people mistakenly believe such behaviour is acceptable.”

So violence is OK on the playing field or ice arena? Your headline should have read “No room for violence anywhere.”

Don’t give us the platitudes that emotions run high in sport and sometimes fights occur when things get out of hand. I didn’t see any fights at the Olympic Games hockey competitions, as fighting is banned there and emotions also run high when playing for your country.

In your myopic view, if two players fight on the playing field or ice arena, that is OK, but if after the game, they take the same unfinished fight to the parking lot, this is unacceptable. Why? Because they don’t have skates on?

Fighting on the playing field, in the ice arena, on the soccer pitch, at the baseball diamond, etc., is wrong and sends the message you settle your sport differences with violence.

Pummelling your spouse does not make you a good partner, beating your children does not make you a good parent, and fighting in sports does not make you good at your sport. All three are wrong and all three should be dealt with the same way — by the courts.

The one- tooth, beer- gut, knuckle- dragging fans who cheer on fighting in a game are not fans of the sport, they are fans of violence and it is long past time they have nothing more to cheer about.

Jim Heynen, Calgary

Colleen De Neve/ Calgary Herald Calgary Flames left winger Johnny Gaudreau was driven into the boards by Arizona Coyotes defenceman Chris Summers during the Kraft Hockeyville game last Wednesday in Sylvan Lake. Reader Jim Heynen writes that violence is wrong on and off the ice.