Shanahan Says NHL to Review Fighting

After getting tough on headshots, the league's disciplinarian says they're going to take a long, hard, look at fighting, too.

Brendan Shanahan, the National Hockey League's chief of discipline and player safety, says he will take look at fighting's role in the sport as the season gets underway. Shanahan, who's already stiffened punishments for head shots since taking over from Colin Campbell in June, told Peter Mansbridge in a one-on-one interview that if the league is getting serious over blows to the head, fighting would have to be included in the discussion. Fighting's place in the game has been under heavy public scrutiny in the offseason due to the deaths of enforcers Rick Rypien, Derek Boogard, and Wade Belak. Shanahan has yet to make public any specific rule changes to fighting, but as we've suggested before, the best place to start would be to consider whether staged fights between players who do nothing else on the ice still have a place in the game.