It is the only major team sport that allows fighting. Hockey is played with helmets, sticks and blades. Players are checked, slashed, tripped, hooked and held. It is a game defined by blood on the ice, toothless competitors and violent collisions. And, oh yeah, it might just be the last bastion of class in professional sports.
In a sports world where Pat McAfee is swears, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are openly at odds, and Jaylen Brown refuses to shake hands with longtime teammate Jayson Tatum; hockey is actually carrying the torch for dignity in athletics.
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I watched the 2026 Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony this past week, which was simulcast on NHL Network and TSN. The inductees list included star after star after star.
Patrice Bergeron, a 19-season Boston Bruins center, multiple award winner and 2011 Stanley Cup champion. Cindy Curley, a women’s hockey trailblazer who scored a record 23 points at the 1990 IIHF Women’s World Championship. Carey Price, the winningest goaltender in the storied history of the Montreal Canadiens.
Pekka Rinne, a Nashville Predators icon and the winningest Finnish goaltender in NHL history. Keith Tkachuk, a tough yet skilled player who helped establish the power forward position. Brian Burke, the gruff, hard-edged executive and television commentator.
The ceremony offered a clear demonstration of why class remains alive and well in the National Hockey League. But it certainly isn’t the only reason.
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Look The Part, Honor The Sport
Let’s start with the surface stuff. Many of today’s sports television personalities dress like fans who just got escorted out of the arena. NHL play-by-play announcers and color analysts, however, take a different approach. These men and women are almost always look the part in sport coats, fine suits or dresses. High dollar shirts and ties.
Their attire is more suited for a fashion show than a faceoff.
In 2020, when the erudite Mike ‘Doc’ Emrick decided to retire as the lead play-by-play announcer for the NHL on NBC, he left a void in the hockey broadcast booth. Thankfully, that void has been filled by the likes of Kenny Albert, Sean McDonough, Eddie Olczyk, P.K. Subban, Kevin Weekes, Steve Levy and many others. Each bringing their own elegance and professionalism to the role.
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Conversely, the NFL has gone in a different direction. Personalities like McAfee and ESPN’s Jason Kelce know football. But their personalities and broadcasting styles are often loud, boisterous and animated. Moreover, sports media has become a place where excitement often surpasses experience.
Another example of what separates the NHL from other professional sports is its postseason. During the NHL playoffs, officials tend to call fewer penalties. Thus allowing these incredibly strong athletes to skate harder and play a more physical game.
What happens at the end of every playoff series? Two teams that just spent four to seven games beating the living heck out of each other meet at center ice and shake hands. That’s right. The same hand that formed a fist and made a violent connection with an opponent’s jaw is the one that reaches out to that opponent with grace and sportsmanship.
What other sport does that?
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Perhaps tennis, where players meet at center court after a match and shake hands. But nothing compares to getting smacked in the face by a piece of hard rubber traveling at 100 mph, especially when the alternative is getting nicked in the knee by a wayward fluorescent green Dunlop.
Class On And Off The Ice
There is a long-running belief in sports media that hockey players are among the most accommodating athletes when it comes to interviews and media availability. We see plenty of clips of coaches and athletes in other sports ducking reporters or being downright rude to them. In turn, NHL players tend to be available and accommodating.
They seem to have retained the seemingly lost qualities of politeness and cooperation.
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The 2026 Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony showcased both sides of hockey. You had players like Bergeron and Price, soft-spoken beacons of class who thanked their teammates. Shunned the spotlight and essentially gave everyone else credit for their brilliant careers.
Then you had Burke, who entered in the Builder category. The Minnesota native’s speech was more like a Don Rickles roast. At one point, he ran through the numerous teams, organizations and television networks he had worked for and joked, “A lot of thanks for people who fired me. I don’t know why I’m doing it.”
Each of the Hall of Fame inductees devoted more time to thanking others than congratulating themselves. Isn’t that refreshing in today’s world of look-at-me clicks, likes and follows?
The NHL has always set the pace when it comes to identifiable players. A lunch-pail attitude and a basic gentility that somehow coexists with bone-crushing hits and fisticuffs. Moreover, the sports world needs these dignified degenerates now more than ever.
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These aren’t NBA players who embrace load management. Or even baseball pitchers who consider 75 pitches or five innings a complete game. Hockey players don’t break a nail and miss six weeks. They break a bone and return by the middle of the second period.
Perhaps no one exemplifies the class-and-crash dichotomy of the NHL more than 2026 Hall of Fame inductee Tkachuk. In addition, he ranks 36th all-time in goals with 536 and 41st in penalty minutes with 2,219. During his induction speech, he summed up the singular beauty of the NHL with a simple statement: “Our culture is the best in sports.”
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The post How Hockey Proves Class and Sportsmanship Still Have a Place in Professional Sports appeared first on Barrett Media.
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