The 2000 Oscar-winning film Gladiator may have had its shaky moments, but it did capture the love-hate relationship the Romans had with their fighters. The gladiators were social outcasts; intellectuals hated them, and women loved them. Some became famous, but most had brutally short careers.

Welcome to the NHL, where two millennia later, nothing has changed. The ongoing debate over fighting in hockey is between two sides who cannot possibly agree: the rational people (Ken Dryden, for example) who condemn the violence for what it is, and the emotional people (Don Cherry, for example) who see the violence as part of the game they love. Better a fistfight than a stick-swinging incident, the second camp insists.

It all boils down to how civilized you like your hockey. Of course it’s possible to legislate fighting almost completely out of the game; it’s about putting the puck in the net, not your fist in someone’s face. But would fewer people watch?

There are a lot of hockey fans out there that can appreciate a good, clean fight. A couple of guys drop their gloves and go at it until the first guy drops to the ice and then it’s over. The referee usually steps in at this point to end the fight before it escalates into an all out ground-and-pounder.

That being said, most hockey fans will tell you that they don’t approve of violence in hockey. Not the kind of violence that can send a guy to the E.R. or put him out of the game completely. (Bertuzzi hit on Steve Moore.)

Last night over in the Russian Superleague a fight broke out on the ice and then the whole thing erruped into a bench brawl. When all was said and done 387 penalty minutes were handed down to the players. Was there anyone left to finish off the game? Here…see for yourself.