Brian McGrattan ‘fine’ after suffering brutal AHL knockout (Video)

After a knockout of American Hockey League enforcer Brian McGrattan, fighting needs to go away.

At the age of 34, Brian McGrattan spent the last 10 years as an NHL forward enforcer with the Ottawa Senators, Calgary Flames, Nashville Predators and the Arizona Coyotes, earning 609 penalty minutes in 317 regular season career games. He has scored 27 points over the same 317 contests.

Currently he is a member of the San Diego Gulls (which is the Anaheim Ducks affiliate). Recently he was involved in a pretty significant situation where he was knocked out unconscious during a game against the San Antonio Rampage. McGrattan fought with defenseman Daniel Maggio and it appears that McGrattan was knocked out after landing onto the ice face first.

Even after experiencing this tragic incident, McGrattan is quoted as saying on Twitter that he will be back shortly and knows the risks involved:

In Canada fans are able to watch Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights when you can hear former Boston Bruins head coach Don Cherry talk about the importance of hockey fights. He will usually stand on his pulpit preaching how you are a fantastic hockey player or, how he eloquently says it, “you are a hockey’s player’s hockey player” if you can defeat your opponent. He sometimes uses his weekly Coach’s Corner first intermission segment to show various fights within the game of hockey.  He often giggles about how bruised up a player’s face looks after a fight. When McGrattan was on the NHL scene, he was often one of Cherry’s main targets whom he would talk about.

This debate will always be discussed among hockey fans. Is the skill of putting pucks in the net the primary focus of being a successful hockey player? Or does fighting need to be added to a player’s repertoire to be considered an all-around talented player? Fans who feel they want fighting out of the game permanently are always suggesting that the National Hockey League will not have the guts to end fighting.

For what it’s worth, fighting should be out of the game.  Yes, you need to be tough and physical but these players have lives away from the ice. They have parents, wives/girlfriends and children and, if players are facing concussions and injuries to their heads, is it really worth it?

Definitely not!