from Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun,

Burke, who’s been mostly silent since pledging to remain in the background as the chief hockey executive of the Calgary Flames, had no problem Thursday arguing the need for fighting in hockey as a purely practical matter.

Whichever end of the P.C. spectrum you may favour, what Burke said in a telephone interview from Toronto is pretty much undeniable.

“What cracks me up is, the disarmament treaty is all in the East,” he said. “I don’t understand it, because you get to the (L.A. Kings-New York Rangers) finals, and what is the one thing that leaped out at you? The Rangers were too small.

“In the West … I mean, we’re going into St. Louis tomorrow. Big, ugly team. You play Anaheim, they’ve always been big and ugly, now they’ve added Kesler, who’s not big and ugly but he’s a grumpy, hostile player. Then you go up to San Jose, they’re historically one of the biggest teams in the league … I said this in a speech the other night: size and toughness, they’re not optional in the West.”

The movement to eliminate fighting, Burke says, is coming from outside the game, not inside.

“The amount of fighting has been significantly reduced, that’s a good thing. We don’t have bench-clearing brawls, we don’t have three-hour games,” he said.

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