Sanderson Death Casts Spotlight on Fighting

Yesterday in Port Perry, Ontario, hundreds of mourners said goodbye to Don Sanderson, a defenseman for the Whitby Dunlops, a Senior AAA minor league hockey team. Sanderson, who was also a student at York University, was just 21 years old.
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↵He died last week after spending three weeks in a coma, one that was caused when he suffered a head injury after falling to the ice during a fight with Cory Fulton of the Brantford Blast back on December 12. During the fight, Sanderson’s helmet fell off, leaving him vulnerable to the injury. Here’s a report from Canada’s TSN:
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↵Like a lot of folks, I’m a fan of hockey fights, and know that it will always be part of the game. Still, stories like this -- even if it is a freak accident -- can’t help but give one more than a little bit of pause.
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As any regular hockey fan is all too aware, helmets come off in fights all the time, and one has to wonder just how close we’ve come to a similar tragedy on the ice in the NHL -- and that’s whether or not there’s an unwritten code in place that supposedly keeps everyone in line.
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↵Being a fighter in the NHL is something of a thankless job -- at least that was the impression I came away with after speaking with Donald Brashear a few years ago in the Washington Capitals locker room.
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↵Walking into an arena filled with 20,000 plus screaming fans knowing that you’re probably going to have to take on somebody as big and tough as you are can’t be an easy feeling to take. But year after year, men like Sanderson, Brashear and Georges Laraques keep coming back to do their jobs. Could it be that they’re actually braver than we could ever give them credit for?↵