Derek Boogaard: Blood on the Ice

Derek Boogaard: Blood on the Ice

‘I DIDN’T SEE it coming at all. I was in a bad position and he hit me hard, hardest I’ve ever been hit. I instantly knew it was broken. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I went straight on the ice. And I felt where it was, and my hand didn’t rub my face normally. It was a little chunky and sharp in spots and there was a hole there about the size of a fist.” — TODD FEDORUK, former N.H.L. enforcer

The fist belonged to Derek Boogaard. Whenever he opened his right hand, the fingers were bent and the knuckles were fat and bloody with scar tissue, as if rescued a moment too late from a meat grinder. That hand was, until the end, what the family worried about most with Boogaard. How would he write when he got old?

When Boogaard closed his right hand, though, it was a weapon, the most feared in the N.H.L. The thought of Boogaard’s right fist kept rival enforcers awake at night. It made them alter their strategy and doubt their fighting acumen. And, in the case of Todd Fedoruk, that fist shattered his face and dropped him to the ice, all while officials and teammates watched, an arena full of hockey fans cheered and Boogaard’s Minnesota Wild teammates banged their sticks against the boards in appreciation.

No single punch announced the arrival of a heavyweight enforcer the way it did on Oct. 27, 2006. Fedoruk, 6 feet 2 and 235 pounds, had built a career as a nuisance and willing combatant. Trying to avenge a hit that the 6-8 Boogaard had laid on an Anaheim Ducks teammate, Fedoruk chased Boogaard down the ice. He baited him with tugs on his jersey.

Seven seconds after their gloves dropped, the damage was done. Surgeons inserted metal plates and a swath of mesh to rebuild the right side of Fedoruk’s face. His career was never the same.

Message sent. Players around the league took notice of the Boogeyman.

“I knew sooner or later he would get the better of me,” said Georges Laraque, long considered the toughest man in hockey. “And I just — I like my face, and I just didn’t want to have it broken.”

Boogaard was 24, in his second N.H.L. season. He was already established as a fan favorite in Minnesota and a man to avoid everywhere else in the dangerous, colorful and sometimes unhinged world of hockey enforcers.

“I never fought mad. Because it’s a job, right? I never took it personally. Lot of times when guys fight, you just ask the other guy politely. Because the job is hard enough. Why make it harder by having to insult anyone? We know what the job is.”

— GEORGES LARAQUE,
former N.H.L. enforcer

There has been fighting in hockey for about as long as there have been pucks. Early games, on frozen ponds and outdoor rinks, were often scrumlike affairs with little passing. Without strong rules, scores were settled with swinging sticks and flying fists.

The N.H.L., formed in 1917, considered a ban on fighting. It ultimately mandated that fighters be assessed a five-minute penalty. That interpretation of justice, now Rule 46.14, still stands. It has never been much of a deterrent.

The best way to protect top players from violent onslaughts, teams have long believed, is the threat of more violence, like having a missile in a silo. Teams employ on-ice bruisers, the equivalent of playground bodyguards. Hurt one of us, and we will send out someone bigger, tougher to exact revenge.

“Having another player in the bench that is willing to come over and willing to punch you is a good deterrent for other violence on the ice — as crazy as that sounds,” said Matt Shaw, an assistant coach for the N.H.L.’s San Jose Sharks.

Teams did not hesitate to promote the prospect of a ruckus. Fighting was not just necessary, they believed, but also part of hockey’s allure. Nearly half of N.H.L. games, 600 or more in a typical season, pause for a two-man brawl.

“I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out,” the comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to say. Everyone still gets the joke.

Imagine in football, if a linebacker hit a quarterback with what the quarterback’s team believed was too much force. The equivalent to hockey’s peculiar brand of justice would be if those teams each sent a player from the sideline — someone hardly valued for his skill as a player, perhaps rarely used — and had them interrupt the game to fight while teammates and officials stood back and watched.

In football, as in most sports, such conduct would end in ejections, fines and suspensions.

In hockey, it usually means five minutes in the penalty box and a spot in the postgame highlights.

Fighting is not tolerated in most hockey leagues around the world. It is not part of college hockey in the United States and Canada, nor international tournaments like the Olympics.