It would never occur to you that you were looking at one of the nicest guys in the Flyers' locker room. A happy-go-lucky, dedicated and loving father and husband, a guy who seems more like a kid than the little blond, pre-school boy he lets sit on his back when he does pushups or unwraps the tape on his legs after practice.
To see him down-and-out like that and wonder how badly he was hurt, knowing that he has had a series of very serious facial fractures, was unnerving.
I didn't feel better until I saw him trying to get up and telling the medical people he did not want to go out on a stretcher. I know he was thinking about his family and not wanting them to see that, particularly his little boy.
Fedoruk, on Thursday, said his son was watching the game and telling him on the television to get up .
With no apologies to anyone who argues that fighting is part of hockey, Fedoruk included, I can do without ever seeing a scene like that again.
I'm not going to preach about how wrong it is and about how no other major sport allows this, that it doesn't exist in either college hockey or in Europe, the Olympics, or even the playoffs when the games are ultra-important.
And I'm not going to lie; I've enjoyed watching.
But I can't help feeling that this debate is shallow, that the cheers from the fans in New York weren't disturbing. It stopped when they realized how serious the situation was, so I'm not putting anything on them. It's the same in any arena, the same as it has been for thousands of years: People love to watch combat.
NHL executive Colin Campbell said the day after that it was time to revisit the question of fighting in the league. Anyone want to bet where that debate goes? I'd suggest nowhere.
The comments that followed, including those from Fedoruk, were about how it is too ingrained in the game, that it's needed to police the players who can't police themselves.
