Consider the social status of public smoking 25 years ago. The change in attitudes that has occurred in such a short period of time is really quite remarkable.
Today, if you are a non smoker, ask yourself how many good friends you have that are avid smokers? If you are a serious smoker, how many of your good friends are "not" avid smokers? It's become a huge societal divide. Smokers hang around with smokers. Drunks hang around with drunks. Hockey fighting advocates hang around with other fighting advocates.
I'm witnessing, at least in the hockey dressing rooms I visit, a similar evolution of attitudes toward fighting in hockey. There are two camps and those who straddle the fence are few and far between. Either you think fighting is barbaric and should be outlawed, or you think it's what makes hockey the great sport that it is.
Perhaps we've turned the corner on this and it's only a matter of time before the hockey power brokers relent and ban this ridiculous behavior. The trend is not easily reversible. The momentum is clearly on their side.
The youngsters who are coming in to the game today have young parents who are much more protective of these little skulls that previous generations. I didn't wear a helmut until I was 15. It was never a consideration. Today's parents are a different breed. They've seen a player die as a result of a fight. They don't want their little Johnny to die. I doubt they'll put up with this much longer. Also, it's one of the reasons fewer Canadians are taking to the game. It's not just the cost and the inconvenience of getting up at 5 in the morning on their day off to drive to a cold and barren rink somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The dangers can no longer be ignored.
Or, maybe this great divide will continue and hockey and it's community will isolate themselves from Canadian society in general. When the CBC loses Hockey Night in Canada soon, that might be the beginning of the end for hockey as our national pastime.