Convene a fact-finding mission!

I was reading through the news today and came across a preposterous article about fisticuffs in the National Hockey League. For the sports illiterate out there, the prevalence of fighting in the NHL can be summed up by the old joke Rodney Dangerfield used to tell: I saw a fistfight the other night, and a hockey game broke out!

It seems that more and more people are calling for the league to curtail fighting, since it slows down action and seems somewhat foreign to new fans of the league. Here's the money quote, though, from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, reacting in the wake of a player being taken off the ice on a stretcher after a fight recently by saying he doesn't want to see fighting disappear from its traditional place in the game:

The discussion that we've been having is about player safety and injuries," said Bettman. "We've had a number of injuries resulting from fighting recently.The question is whether or not that's an aberration or whether or not it's something we need to be concerned about."

Gee, that's a real puzzler commish. I wonder if there is any link between fighting and injuries. We should really call for a team to investigate whether or not players who fight intend to hurt each other or not.