Bastards Like Violence

I’ve been considering the contradictory natures of sports in that many of them are violent, which holds an undeniable appeal—I could generalize even further about the general appeal of violence, but let’s keep the focus.

I’m not saying the entire reason people love football, hockey, UFC or any sport that includes a lot of contact is for the violence alone. There’s always strategy, teamwork and tactics that go hand in hand.

So yeah, we might like seeing guys get buried under linebackers, but they’re encased in armor that’s been designed with that very purpose in mind. And when an arm gets broke or the body gets a sudden injury—well that’s just part of game. The player in question can go cry into his big fat pile of money.

However, I don’t think anyone really loves seeing life altering injuries (paralysis, etc) or death. No one really hopes for that kind of violence (out side of air shows and NASCAR).

Last night, the worse injury in hockey that can happen, happened. You can read all the gory details on your own right here, but here’s the main point I need you to know:

“The Panthers' Olli Jokinen collided with the Sabres' Clarke MacArthur in the corner. As Jokinen fell, his right leg went airborne. Zednik was skating toward the play, and Jokinen's skate sliced into the right side of Zednik's neck.” --John Vogl, News Sports Reporter, (full article already linked)

He had his throat sliced open by a falling team mates razor sharp skate. How this man didn’t die is beyond me. It sounds like you can thank the fairly immediate response by the trainer followed by the attention of the two doctors that got the blood to stop before they loaded him on the ambulance and took him in for surgery.

By now, if you haven’t seen the footage of Mr. Zednik getting his throat opened you’ve either chosen not to or you need to get better at searching YouTube. Either way, do you think more people would have sought the footage out if Mr. Zednik had died, or less?