Red sweaters not responsible for black and blue players

(PHOTO OF RYAN McKIERNAN BY ANDREW DOBROWOLSKYJ)

By Misty Harris
Postmedia News

Reporting in the journal "Social Psychological and Personality Science", researchers say no matter how they measured, there wasn't a shred of meaningful evidence that black or red jerseys lead to a spike in aggressive behaviour, among current NHL players. However, one hockey historian throws caution to the wind.


"Intimidation in the NHL used to be a much larger factor than it is today," says Earl Zukerman of McGill University in Montreal. "I think if you applied the (current) study to NHL fight data from the 1970s and earlier, you may come up with entirely different findings, as that was arguably an era where fighting and other roughhouse tactics were almost encouraged."