The Ice Dogs cometh, usually with their fists

As the final seconds tick off the clock, a young hockey player with the Bozeman Ice Dogs wheels toward the opposing goaltender and slashes him with his stick. Before referees can intervene, players from both benches empty onto the ice in a mele.

Punches are thrown. Fans in the stands, rising in rowdy approval, encourage the teenage athletes to bare their fists.

Welcome to the American West Junior A Hockey League, a rough-and-tumble world where kids with dreams of playing pro hockey are encouraged to brawl to sell tickets, provide "good family entertainment," and win games.

This winter, chronic outbreaks of fighting, bench-clearing brawls, and a spate of serious injuries have made the West a flash point in the controversy over escalating violence in hockey - and all of sport.

Between big-league baseball players charging the mound any time pitchers appear to challenge them to football players shoving referees and flaunting the notorious "cutthroat" neck gesture, youths have never been exposed to more examples of poor sportsmanship, sociologists say.

Among the big four of spectator sports, however, hockey stands apart in reputation. And there is growing concern that acts of extreme violence at the junior and professional tier are having a negative influence on youth behavior.

"Other than in the boxing ring, the hockey rink is the only place in society where people can drop their gloves and go after each other with minimal repercussions," says Steven McCaw, a professor in health and recreation studies at Illinois State University in Normal. "Violence is glamorized in ways it didn't used to be."

Canada's bold reforms

Now, the nation that made hockey synonymous with violence - Canada - is taking bold steps to ensure that young players leave the rink with basic principles of respect rather than the "thug" behavior they see in the NHL. The actions are so sweeping that they have captured the attention of the American sports establishment. Among the efforts taking hold:

*Hockey players sew patches, shaped like "Stop" signs into their jerseys to serve as constant reminders that checking from behind is dangerous.

*Where parents have become unruly, they have been banned from arenas, sometimes leaving kids to play before empty seats in the stands.

*In some youth leagues, teams are rewarded with an extra point in the league standings if they do not surpass an established threshold for penalties in a game.

*Players who attack others are not only ejected from games but, in some cases, also forced to undergo counseling before they are allowed to return.

These reforms fly in the face of hockey

as it has been played for decades. More than half a century ago, Canada's legendary promoter of professional hockey, Conn Smythe, justified fighting by telling his players they would never win on the ice if they weren't tough enough to beat their opposition in a back-alley brawl.

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