I am no hockey fan, let alone expert — soccer is my thing and Liverpool, my creed — so I claim no deep insight into Canada’s national game. I don’t even watch it, except occasionally during playoffs when we all do our duty and come out to cheer the Senators, or the national team during international competitions. Whether fighting should be banned from the game or not, is not my brief. A lot has been written on the subject, and there are far more qualified people to debate the issue.

My point is that the violence that keeps occurring on the ice will catch up with the league, and one day a player will die in front of thousands of fans and on live television. The kind of blows to the head that happen regularly in the NHL has led to deaths in other sports, particularly boxing, and although some people may want to ignore it, it has also happened in hockey. Fans certainly remember what happened to Ontario Hockey Association player Don Sanderson of the Whitby Dunlops, who died after a hockey fight. Something similar in the NHL may not happen today or tomorrow, or even in five years, but logic, common sense, the so-called law of averages — call it what you will — says this is inevitable, and the NHL brass better be ready for it. I am not the only one saying it.

-Mohammed Adam of the Ottawa Citizen, a member of their editorial board. Read more from Adam.