Move Takes Fight Right Out Of Tacoma

This gloomy news that the our Rockets are exercising an escape clause in their contract to relocate in British Columbia leaves me with one question:

Where will we Tacoma sports fans go next time we crave watching teenagers fearlessly pummel each other in a mob-scene brawl?

Nothing against all the boat shows and home-and-garden shows and RV shows and vintage roadster hubcap shows that’ll continue to occupy the Tacoma Dome floor. In the grand scheme of things, they have their place.

But, frankly, when was the last time a really entertaining rumble broke out at a boat show? When was the last time you went to an RV show and appreciated the spectacle of a 16-year-old thug striking another 16-year-old thug on the bridge of the nose, opening a spigot of gushing blood that would gross out Brian DePalma?

For those of us who value this sort of wholesome family entertainment, the future is on TV, where such programming as pro wrestling attempts to nurture our children’s intellectual development. But comparing the choreographed piffle of pro wrestling to the glorious center-ice showdowns of Western Hockey League action would be like putting a mild Meet the Press disagreement against a vulgarity-laced, chair-throwing spat on the Montel Williams Show.

One is simple time-slot filler; the other is fine art.

Besides, there’s no blood in pro wrestling - none that’s genuine, anyway. At a Tacoma Rockets game, the fan never had reason to doubt that every wound was authentic, that every fist came packed with a message.

How we’ll miss these gutsy little warriors whose fierce streaks belied such innocent names as Jamie and Dale. How we’ll miss, too, the privilege of paying $4 to park in an empty lot, then walking across the street to lend emotional support to High School Kids With An Attitude.

As a crestfallen Rockets fan regarded the team’s departure in The News Tribune on Tuesday morning: “The team was important to our youth. It was something to look up to in sports. It’s like they dangle it in front of our faces, and then it’s gone.”

Gone, indeed. There’ll be nobody to fill the void left by the Rockets except thousands of area high school athletes competing in basketball, volleyball and wrestling, where those who fight after the whistle has blown are thrown off the floor - and, sometimes, off the team.

Perhaps you, the loyal Rockets season-ticket holder, are thinking junior hockey has much more than a rough-and-tumble side. Perhaps you are thinking junior hockey promotes character, dedication and teamwork. The occasional fight? Hey, it’s nothing more than a minor nuisance, a necessary evil.

Right. That’s why every brawl on the Tacoma Dome ice was accompanied by screaming fans stomping their feet on the floorboards. Rockets fans, I presume, made all that noise in an attempt to hasten the arrival of a striped-shirt peacekeeping force.

That’s why the Tacoma Rockets’ management consistently frowned upon acquiring any player who knew how to use his fists. In the WHL’s annual bantam draft this past April, for instance, the Rockets waited three full rounds before obtaining a Canadian Golden Gloves boxing champ named Jeremy Yablonski in Round No. 4.

They waited until the sixth round to draft 6-foot3 defenseman Vincent Berndt, who apparently was scouted more for his goonsmanship than his grace.

“A big-time tough guy,” was how Rockets president Bruce Hamilton described Berndt, then added: “If he develops as a skater, fine.”

I don’t know about you, but to me there’s something electrifying about hearing the words “bantam draft” and “big-time tough guy” used in the same breath.

Note, too, Hamilton’s noble notion of the WHL as a classroom devoted to fine-tuning the skills of hockey’s best and brightest prospects. If he develops as a skater, fine.

Your junior hockey dollars at work.

The Rockets might be ditching Tacoma, but there are some profound personal memories they can’t take away from me. Last year, for a few days during the hectic Christmas holidays, I used an upcoming Friday night hockey game as inducement for my 3-year old son to behave himself.

“Friday,” I’d say, “you and daddy will go see a hockey game.”

“Game?” he’d ask. “Hockey?”

“Friday,” I’d repeat. “Hockey.”

Finally Friday came. We ran a little late out of the gate, but as this was not the Stanley Cup playoffs, arriving a few minutes into the first period didn’t figure to matter.

Yet no sooner did we step into the Tacoma Dome than we heard the small crowd cheering and stomping to the fisticuffs on the ice.

“Look, son!” I said in that tenderly wise voice I reserve for four-locomotive trains, exotic zoo animals, carnival ferris wheels and full-scale hockey brawls. “Those big boys on skates are fighting with each other!”

Being 3, he found the animated graphics on the scoreboard more compelling than the raging fists in front of him. But I pressed on.

“See, son? They’re mad. Remember what mommy and daddy tell you to do when you’re mad? You make a fist and punch somebody! Remember?”

No, my boy doesn’t remember, but Tacoma and Prince George engaged in three first-period fights that night worth a combined 70 minutes in penalties.

A memory I’ll hang onto, just in case somebody suggests the Rockets left Tacoma without a fight.