Well, Pseudolus, I'm not to sure that the analogy doesn't hold. In hockey, the object of the game is for five guys to get the puck into the net while five other guys try to keep them from doing it, gain possession of the puck, and put it into the net at their end of the rink. There are rules. Whacking someone with your stick is a no-no. The object of a competitive fencing bout is to score five touches on your opponent before he scores five touches on you. Slashing at your opponent with your whippy blade or otherwise trying to hurt him is also a no-no. In neither sport is using your fists instead of your stick or foil part of it.

By the way, competitive fencing used to be scored visually by four judges and a director. The director followed the action while two judges watched each fencer and called out when they saw a touch. Some years ago they managed to wire the weapons, and now scoring is done electronically. This has all but ruined fencing if one wishes to keep the sport associated with its origins in the duel (it got started as a way to practice with one's sword in case one should ever be called out). Now, if two opponents touch each other nearly simultaneously, if one touch arrives 1/25 of a second before the other, the scoring equipment locks out the second touch.

The result of this is that if one watches fencing these days, instead of seeing two people using their weapons skillfully and trying to outwit each other (also like chess, you need to know the game to fully appreciated an especially good coup, which is probably why it has never achieved much status as a spectator sport, especially in America), you see two white-clad bozos going after each other like a couple of berserk sewing machines. In a duel, you want to score "first blood"—wound or kill your opponent without being wounded yourself. In modern competitive fencing with electrical scoring equipment, the object is to touch your opponent 1/25 of a second before he touches you. This also leads to techniques such as the "flick," which causes the electrical scoring equipment to register a touch even when the contact made wouldn't cause a wound. Within recent years, a new (!??) form of fencing has developed: classic fencing. No electrical scoring equipment, and any action that, in a real duel, a reasonable person would not attempt is forbidden. Classic fencers are beautiful to watch and genuinely exiting.

Anyway, I digress . . . .

My point is that there is so much emphasis placed on winning at all costs and any way you can that sport has ceased to be sport. "Tactics" like whacking a figure skater's knee with a billy club backstage or sucker-punching an opposing player is just as inappropriate on the ice, on the fencing strip, or on the football field as it is in the office or on the street. It should be treated as an assault, "violent sport" notwithstanding.

Don Firth