Hockey's intimidation to skill ratio

If you're in a pensive mood, The Globe and Mail has an absorbing look at how 'Playing dirty in the NHL doesn’t trump playing with skill.'

A brief blurb can't do the presentation justice, but the discussion centres around the fine line of mean meeting tough in the game of hockey.

It turns out there’s a good deal of advanced scholarship on antagonistic behaviour – repackaged in the minds of some hockey people as “character.”

A Canadian psychology professor, Del Paulhus of the University of British Columbia, has identified four broad categories of what he calls dark personalities; the one that most closely relates to hockey is “everyday sadists.”

“Hockey, I believe, has the highest ratio of intimidation to skill,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s the only sport with enforcers, the only one where you’re required to finish your check on a player who has made a pass. Hockey is sending a message: Be as violent as possible.”

'Be as violent as possible' seems vastly hyperbolic, but the 'highest ratio of intimidation to skill' aspect is bang-on.

Mentions range from Matt Cooke and Raffi Torres to Gordie Howe and Rocket Richard with some interesting in-season quotes from Milan Lucic, David Backes, and Andrew Ference.

Worth reading, whether you agree with all of it or not.

Source: Sean Gordon, Globe and Mail