Canadian Junior hockey league bans all fighting for coming season

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League made it official on Thursday and formally announced that it has banned fighting for the upcoming 2023-24 season.

It was first made public back in March this rule change was coming, with Thursday's announcement finalizing it. 

The QMJHL is one of the top junior hockey leagues in Canada and one of the top feeder programs for the NHL. It is also the first of Canada's top three junior leagues to officially put a ban on fighting.

According to the new rule the punishments for fighting will be as follows:

As soon as a fight occurs, those engaged must be systematically ejected from the game. 

Any player found to have instigated the fight will also receive an automatic one-game suspension. 

The person declared to be the aggressor during the fight will receive a minimum of two automatic games of suspension. 

 In addition to the game misconduct, an automatic game suspension is imposed starting with the player's 2nd fight of the season. This suspension is in addition to the sanctions described in the preceding paragraphs.

It was earlier reported in the spring that the league was going in this direction, and now we have the official punishments for what will happen.

Fighting has already been on the decline in hockey – and especially in the NHL – over the past two decades and changes like this are only going to accelerate that trend. It is becoming clear that fighting is being completely phased out of the sport.

Teams have taken their own steps to make that happen by not signing players whose only role is to fight. The traditional enforcer is almost completely extinct in the NHL and if fighting is eliminated in the lower levels, that change will eventually carry on through to the top levels of the sport. 

There really is not much need for fighting at the NHL level and there is even less need for it when it comes to teenagers playing junior hockey. The QMJHL might be the first of the major hockey leagues to take this step, but it is only a matter of time until others begin to follow suit.