Hockey is a vulgar, violent, classless and offensive sport. Deal with it.

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A couple of weeks ago, a trio of Philadelphia Flyers fans went to a game of their team in Pittsburgh where the Flyers once again beat the Penguins as they have done so ever since their new arena opened. The story made the news because the three fans wore Flyers jerseys reading "Malkin Blows", "Crosby Sucks" and "Neal Swallows" on the name plates paired with the jersey number of the respective player. They were asked by the arena staff to take those jerseys off or wear them inside out and they complied.

I am a big defender of free speech. Those jerseys were definitely tacky, dumb, and a jersey foul. Not sure why people would deem it worth the ridiculous price that NHL jerseys cost for such a dumb and unfunny display, but if they want to, they should be able to wear it. However, free speech only protects you from government censorship. When visiting a private business you can still be asked to straighten up your conduct and it should be common courtesy to behave like a regular human being and not like an absolute moron, the arbiter of which is the host.

What surprised me however was the reaction around the internet. People were declaring that something like this has no place in the game, and that the censorship was necessary to protect children from being exposed to sexual concepts, putting them and their parents into an embarrassing situation.

Excuse me, but have those people ever been to a hockey game? Or at least seen one on TV?

Hockey is a vulgar sport. It is modern day gladiatorial combat where people ram into each other at high velocities and throw any conceivable body part in front of pucks traveling at more than 100km/h. It's a sport played by people with clubs in their hands and knives on their feet. And you are watching a league that allows bare-knuckle boxing during its games and the only punishment is that both combatants can not be on the ice for the first 5 minutes after the fight.

And with this amount of violence, comes contempt for the opponent. They are not only taking money out of each others pockets by denying them bonuses for Stanley Cup victories or individual performances, they are also trying to make each other suffer, both physically and mentally, and if there is an actual injury so be it.

And with this contempt comes the expected language. It's not hard to curse out an opponent or express your general disgust with a person that just seconds ago tried to break the knee-caps of a teammate. Chirps can also be humorous, as trying to make fun of an opponent also establishes a form of dominance, but they are rarely meant to be less than degrading to the opposition. This contempt is not only felt by the players on the ice, but also the audience in the stands and in front of the TV screens.

Of course there are certain lines to be drawn. For example the NHL and the organization You Can Play has recently started a campaign to eradicate homophobic slurs within the League, and I say more power to them. Homophobia is an issue in the same vain as racism, and while people may earn your disgust for attempting to give another player a concussion, they definitely aren't liable for how they look or who they are attracted to. Or as Fat Mike sings in Don't call me White: "I can except responsibility for what I've done, but not for who I am".

This ties into a concept that I will for now label "real-life entertainment" and into which hockey falls. You see, unlike other forms of entertainment, hockey is not fiction. There is no absolute separation in which the actions portrayed have no direct influence on the real world. When Frank Miller draws a person gruesomely shot to death in a comic book, nobody actually died. And while art & entertainment can teach people what is correct and what behavior can lead to what consequences, there is always the thought in the back of the mind that this is not real and not necessarily a guide to follow, but an exploration of what could happen.

Hockey on the other hand takes place within the real world. Hockey players are real people and if they break a leg or suffer a concussion, it's not just an interesting storyline to explore, but a real event with real consequences that affect real people. And therein lies the worry of the parents I mentioned earlier, in which naive children emulate their skating idols because they don't know any better and the separation between the world of hockey and real society doesn't really exist to them.

However, while this separation is not as strong as for example with books or movies, there is still a separation of context. Hockey is not actual society. While in hockey people can punch each other silly, get smashed in the face with pucks and sticks, and suffer all sorts of injures, there are hardly any real consequences like we would see in the "real world" for similar behavior. Unless there are some extreme circumstances, nobody will be charged with assault or battery.

On a less violent side of things, a coach grabbing his balls or a player making fun of an opponent who just suffered a concussion is the tip of the iceberg really, and a lot of other things are being said and gestured between the players on the ice that the cameras and microphones do not pick up or the press often deliberately ignores. How often have you heard the commentators on a hockey game excuse themselves for shutting down a microphone because it's too close to a verbal joust between two players?

And the same goes for the audience. Within the context of the game, certain things are to be expected. Whether it's the three numbskulls I mentioned earlier, someone making a T-Shirt of the "Wakey Wakey Backes" incident, or the crowd in New Jersey chanting "Rangers suck, Flyers swallow!" on a regular basis, the level of the audience only matches what is already seen and heard on the ice.

What's strange is that these instances make the headlines when the violence and vulgarity of the sport is regularly on full display? I for my part find flying elbows and knee-on-knee collisions much more offensive than a word or a gesture. Yet some of that violence is exactly what draws people to the sport. Not just the big, but hopefully legal hits, but there is a real culture and fanbase for hockey fights which is by definition a penalty, something that is not allowed within regular play.

If I had to draw a parallel, I would call going to a hockey game like going to see an R-Rated movie. Maybe your children are old enough, and you had a good talking to them putting it into context that the behavior of the people you are watching is under special circumstances and not something they should emulate in every day life. However, going into either and then being appalled by what you see and are having a hard time explaining it to your children, nieces, nephews or what have you is your own fault.

Hockey is a violent, vulgar, and in certain ways offensive sport. You know what it is, and it simply is hockey. It is on you whether you want to watch it and who of your immediate family you want to expose to it.