Blood on the Ice: Hockey's Most Violent Moments

From the Foreword:Violence seems to be ripping at our heels where we turn today: in the streets; on television; in the newspapers; at the movies. Life has always had its inherent violence, but it has never been examined so closely and/or celebrated in the media as now. Movies, that great "Dream Machine," depicted wars, mobsters and other subjects of a violent nature, but essentially they used to be an escape from the realities of everyday existence.Sports have also long taken us "outside" ourselves, whether through participation or as spectators. Their violent aspects - especially the contact sports - have allowed the players and the fans to release pent-up energies and aggressive feelings. Hockey, with fighting an accepted part of the game, is often a survival of the fittest. While the contemporary version played in the professional leagues is not as barbaric or bloody as it was in decades past, there is still enough brawling, brutality, and just plain toughness to make it one of the most challenging and emotional of sports. The speed of the game combined with that emotionalism is perhaps what causes two people to recount the same play or incident from different viewpoints although they are in the same place at the same time.