One day, things will be different.

One day, people will realize that there is no place in life for senseless violence.

One day, we won’t have to rely on diversions to distract us from tragedies.

But until that day, we can just thank our lucky stars that we have sports.

Or can we?

After all, the relationship between violence and sports is disappointingly warm. Football has fights. Baseball has bench-clearing brawls. Basketball has Ron Artest.

And it doesn’t end there.

Soccer, or “futbol” to our Spanish-speaking readers, has a treacherous history of chaos and bloodshed. Typically, this aggression comes not from the footballers but from the fans. Hooligans (read: “glorified drunk people”) regularly participate in acts that would shock even the most bitter Philadelphia Eagles fans. The most notorious incident came in 1985, when 39 fans from Italian side Juventus were crushed by a concrete retaining wall at Heysel Stadium in Belgium while running from rock-throwing, pistol-toting Liverpool supporters.

More recent hooliganism has resulted in trampling deaths in Zimbabwe, a policeman’s murder in Italy and destructive riots in China.

And it doesn’t end there.

Violence has even seeped its way into the most unassuming of sports:

n Tennis: Monica Seles was stabbed by a deranged Steffi Graf fan.

n Figure Skating: Nancy Kerrigan was beaten with a metal club by a man hired by Tonya Harding’s ex-husband.

n Golf: Happy Gilmore was hit by a car driven by a radical Shooter McGavin supporter during the final round of the Tour Championship.

And it doesn’t end there.

Lunatic fans even take to violence in celebration. Riots frequently occur in cities or on campuses following major victories. Denver’s particularly good at it – the good people of the Mile High City rioted after the Broncos’ victories in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII and after the Avalanche won the 1996 and 2001 Stanley Cup Finals.

So where does it end?

How can we rely on sports to liberate us from the hardships of “real life” tragedies when it so frequently prompts horrors of its own? There needs to be a move away from violence in sports, and it needs to start now.

Hockey would be a perfect place to start. The NHL is the only realm of world-class hockey that still advocates fighting.

Gratuitous violence must be eliminated from sports, and the NHL could use the spotlight. Let’s get this done. Let’s start today.