Krause: Thomas Junta story is about uncontrolled rage, not the venue

People seem determined to make Thomas Junta’s manslaughter conviction in the death of Michael Costin a sports story. But to me, it was always much more than that.I suppose we own it, because it happened in a hockey rink, and in a circumstance where a hot-headed sports parent lost his cool because he found it necessary to fight on behalf of his son.So, for that, I will concede partial ownership. But there’s plenty of blame to go around for the fact that conditions are still – despite Junta’s conviction and subsequent eight-year prison term (that ended Thursday) – ripe for angry people to do grave damage because they cannot control their rage.What is the difference between what Junta did and what happened two weeks ago at a Boston nightclub, where the participant in a bar brawl threw a heavy glass against the wall, impaling an innocent bystander in his jugular vein with a shard of glass and killing him? I say none.In both cases, the root cause of the carnage is not necessarily the venue, but the rage ? and the lack of control.And if we’re ever going to be able to wrap ourselves around this concept, we have to examine why it’s still such an epidemic in our society.So look around ? and what do you see? I see the City of Boston finally relenting and allowing a cage-fighting event at the TD Garden. This represents the absolutely lowest end of the low ends in sports, yet from everything I’ve read, tickets for this extravaganza are selling like crazy.Is it an oversimplification to suggest that if we, as a society, insist on setting the bar this low, then we deserve what we get when angry – and perhaps, in some cases, alcohol-impaired – people go overboard and cause these tragedies? I don’t think so. If you’ve just run out and bought tickets to something like this, then you have no business – none – grabbing your head in horror over a death that comes out of a rage incident.Many of our most popular sports are predicated on violence. We watch them gladly ? and they’re accepted just as gladly a part of an intricately woven fabric of our existence.But it might be time to ask whether there’s a deepening disconnect between the games we watch and play and the way people react to them ? and which aspects of these sports people emulate when confronted by frustrating people and situations?I’m guessing Junta saw a lot of hockey fights in his youth, and figured it was no big deal to do to Costin what he’d seen countless NHLers do during Bruins games. Those guys always got up and skated off. But Costin didn’t.Last winter, after the Bruins’ Marc Savard was given a serious concussion in a game against Pittsburgh, the cry began that the Bruins couldn’t officially put it behind them until someone on their team attacked the Penguin perpetrator. That’s exactly what happened the next time the teams met. The crowd cheered wildly. Shawn Thornton was the hero of the moment.It all seemed pretty harmless ? almost theatrical, actually ? like an old-time pro wrestling match.The problem is, however, people are watching ? and obviously taking the wrong things out of these incidents. If we don’t get what we want, or if someone’s bothering us a little too much, we do what the pros do. We get physical.I hope, for his sake, Junta got some serious anger management inside jail. I also hope that once he get re-acclimated into his environment, he’s not shy about using himself as an example of what can happen if we lose our tempers and can’t find the “off” button in time to prevent serious injuries or worse.Junta served eight years of a 10-year-maximum sentence. His release should tell us that he’s at least rectified the biggest issue of his conviction ? that he was responsible for what happened to Michael Costin, and that it really didn’t matter whether Costin was obnoxious, abusive, whether he started it, or whatever else. Junta finished it in a most tragic way.I just hope that all the moralists out there who find it so easy to label him a “killer” understand how danger