Riley Cote is a former professional ice hockey left winger who played eight seasons in the NHL with the Philadelphia Flyers. During his career, he was known as an enforcer on the ice. Riley announced his retirement from professional hockey at the age of 28. Most recently, he was an assistant coach with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the American Hockey League (AHL) for the past 7 seasons. Riley is currently focusing on his Hemp Heals Foundation, which promotes sustainable agriculture, sustainable health and clean natural medicine, while focusing on a holistic approach to optimum health through the use of hemp. I immediately felt a connection to Riley because both of us embraced the identity of being a “tough guy” in our respective sports. Neither of us would think twice before throwing our bodies around to make a big hit, or in Riley’s case starting a fight. Going into this conversation with Riley, I strongly disagreed with fighting in hockey. In my mind, putting a ban on fighting would be an easy way to avoid dangerous and unnecessary hits to the head, without actually altering the essence of the game. However, by the end of our conversation I formed a much different opinion on the role that fighting plays in hockey. “If you can instill fear into your opponent, and then someone feels dominated by you mentally, you own them.” So what makes someone an “enforcer” in the NHL? An enforcer in the NHL needs to be fearless, have the ability to sacrifice their bodies and the willingness to fight anyone, no matter what the size. The role of the enforcer is to create energy in the arena, but more importantly to keep the peace out on the ice and keep everyone in check. Riley says guys like him are few and far between in today’s NHL because the direction of the game is trending towards speed and quickness. In Riley’s opinion, the lack of policemen out on the ice has actually led to more dangerous hits. A mutual respect exists between NHL “tough guys”, their teams and their opponents, even after getting their ass kicked. “You can put guys in the penalty box all day long, but you haven’t really addressed the problem.” Rule changes in the NHL have also discouraged players to fight. Riley explained how it used to be that you could fight anyone on the other team and you would both get 5 minutes for fighting, so there was no power play. After the introduction of the instigator rule, the fight instigator gets 2 minutes for initiating the fight, 5 minutes for fighting and 10 minutes for misconduct. This puts the instigator out of the game for 17 minutes and their team down a man for 2 minutes. The structure of this rule incentivizes players to turtle. This comes into play when an enforcer retaliates for a cheap hit that was d
