Violence and sport - the issue would sound laughable here were it not steeped in tragedy, but the ice hockey players of the NHL are searching their souls over the rules of fighting.

Fighting in ice hockey is legal; it is believed to have considerable marketing value, too. But after an NHL Players' Association poll, its leader, Paul Kelly, has decreed that: “If it's a staged fight between two super-heavyweights that perhaps is arranged a day before the game, I'm not so sure those are the fights that we need to continue to have in the sport.”

A majority of players believe that fighting must remain in the game but there is a move to push for legislation requiring a player to keep his helmet on.

Much of the discussion follows the death at the start of the year of a player in a senior amateur league game in Canada. Don Sanderson, of the Whitby Dunlops, lost his helmet in a fight and fell and lost consciousness after his head hit the ice.

A poll conducted within 43 Canadian newspapers shows a 59 per cent majority want a ban on fighting in minor and amateur ice hockey.

Kiwis say no to Becks

Surprising though it may sound, there is a limit to David Beckham's popularity. Indeed, the wannabe AC Milan employee's lack of popularity has caused the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) a considerable debt.

The ARC invited Beckham and the Los Angeles Galaxy, his (then, now?) team, to New Zealand to play the Oceania All-Stars on December 6. Following the principle “if you bring him, they will come”, the ARC spent close to £1million to secure the match and figured that its 30,000-seater Mount Smart Stadium would rock.

The result: a half-full stadium, an official inquiry and a 3-0 victory for the Galaxy.

Blunt advice

Marijuana and iconic athletes, part II: in the past six months in Japan, four sumo wrestlers have been banned from the sport for allegedly smoking the drug. It is reported as Japan's biggest doping scandal. It does not help that the sumo kings are deified, their sport rooted in ritual, tradition and self-discipline. The most recent case was of Wakakirin, who was photographed in a nightclub wearing gold chains and with his hair not in a traditional top-knot.