Fighting has to go

[CantHaveTkachev]

It's just the opposite. Everyday life is becoming more violent. With 24/7 media, the internet, etc., the average person is inundated with more violence, more death, more destruction than ever before. It's literally everywhere. Compare that to the 1960s when the most violent thing anybody ever saw was Rowdy Yates shooting somebody on Rawhide.
It makes sense that people of yesteryear turned to sports to get their 'violence fix'. That isn't needed in todays atmosphere. Just the opposite. Sports is entertainment, an escape from everyday life. As such, people are turning away from violence (fighting) in sports.

nah, violence isn't up....it's just everyone can now record it on their phones and post it to social media

 

[Channelcat]

I like hockey fights, but yes it needs to end now. It's a miracle nobody has died on the ice.

 

[MikeGrier99]

I like hockey fights, but yes it needs to end now. It's a miracle nobody has died on the ice.

No one has died on the ice in NHL, but fighting in hockey has caused a lot of suffering, loss of quality of life, and even death over the years. It's time for it to go, it isn't even an essential part of the game.

 

[HugginThePost]

I used to get « excited » when fight happens. But now I just find it stupid.


Fans do stand up when there’s fight. But on the other hand, most of them wouldn’t really care if there was no fights anymore.

Fights in hockey will go. When? I don’t know. 5, 10 or even 50 years? It’s just a matter of time.

So just make it go ASAP before a player die on the ice after a fight.

Not trying to be a dick, but so what? There is risk in everything we do, it's our job as an adult to decide if it's worth the risk. Something that seems to be lost on this current generation. Everyone want's to be safe. Everyone want's to feel secure.

Where do we stop?

No more F1? No more WRC? No more NFL? No more Rock Climbing? No more NHRA? No more sky diving? No more Nascar? No more driving to work? No more flying in a plane? No more putting up your Christmas lights!!

Where do you make the cut-off to satisfy your need to ensure we all go home safe and sound??

Let's just all stay in the basement and eat oatmeal, problem solved.

 

[Captain Lindy]

Hockey is an emotional game. If you don't like fighting, go watch baseball.

 

[Over the volcano]

Think it’s an essential part of the game and the culture of hockey. There’s no need to clutch pearls when there are plenty of more violent sports out there.

 

[Finster8]

Hockey is an emotional game. If you don't like fighting, go watch baseball.

I don't believe in staged fights or goons. However, the intensity of the game and emotions run high which will always trigger a fight. Someone runs your goalie or #1 player, rookie what do you think happens? To much testosterone for it to be completely gone.

 

[MikeGrier99]

Where do we stop?

Just make fighting in hockey a 3 game suspension. The game isn't changed at all, brain cells are saved, and you reduce tragic and unnecessary situations like Derek Boogard or Wade Belak.

 

[sinDer]

Not trying to be a dick, but so what? There is risk in everything we do, it's our job as an adult to decide if it's worth the risk. Something that seems to be lost on this current generation. Everyone want's to be safe. Everyone want's to feel secure.

Where do we stop?

No more F1? No more WRC? No more NFL? No more Rock Climbing? No more NHRA? No more sky diving? No more Nascar? No more driving to work? No more flying in a plane? No more putting up your Christmas lights!!

Where do you make the cut-off to satisfy your need to ensure we all go home safe and sound??

Let's just all stay in the basement and eat oatmeal, problem solved.

Not trying to be a dick, but this is a stupid argument and a lazy intellectual short-cut.

By your « logic », we should not respect the highway code because people die in car accidents everyday anyways?

 

[Based Anime Fan]

Didn't the players get polled about this not too long ago, and the consensus from the players was overwhelmingly that they supported fighting?

 

[HockeyVirus]

You ask a casual about hockey, first thing they will say is they like the hits and fights. It would be like taking tackling out of the NFL. Sure, there remains some really cool and interesting depth to the game, analyzing skill and systems, but the face value entertainment takes a massive decline.

People say fighting can go but then one happens, the entire crowd is on their feet...

 

[Bruisebros2426]

Pure enforcers and staged fighting are already more or less gone. Fighting is way down even compared to like 10 years ago, let alone the 90's. Leave it alone or go watch something else. It's a contact sport with constant collisions and repeated jarring of the head even in players who don't fight. You aren't going to mitigate every possible scenario where someone could get hurt. Mandatory visors, the instigator rule, fights being broken up really quickly, there are so many mechanisms in place to mitigate against injury. Still happens sometimes, live with it or don't watch.

Some people aren't going to be happy until sweaters are plastered with McDonalds and Chase ads and the game has been completely boiled down to the banal generalized equivalence that other sports have been reduced to: A money-making machine where everything unique about the game is scrubbed away so as to make it marketable and palatable to a mass audience. It's sad and it's pathetic.

 

[Pandemonia]

Didn't the players get polled about this not too long ago, and the consensus from the players was overwhelmingly that they supported fighting?

Yes. https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhlers-overwhelmingly-want-fighting-to-stay-poll-1.986982

 

[Bruisebros2426]

Wasn’t bare knuckle boxing banned 100 years ago? Even the MMA has padded gloves for striking. But the NHL allows guys to bare knuckle fight? It’s only a matter of time before fighting is gone.

Yeah, bare-knuckle fighting on skates where you've got to rip your opponent's helmet off, after which you've got about 3 seconds before the refs step in. Some people in here are commenting as if the NHL sees 800 fights a year and the league hasn't already severely cracked down on it.

 

[Pandemonia]

You ask a casual about hockey, first thing they will say is they like the hits and fights.

No. The first thing a casual [fan] will say is that they are turned off by the fighting which is not allowed in other real sports.

 

[HockeyVirus]

No. The first thing a casual [fan] will say is that they are turned off by the fighting whih is not allowed in other real sports.

Hard disagree

 

[DingerMcSlapshot]

No. The first thing a casual [fan] will say is that they are turned off by the fighting whih is not allowed in other real sports.

Is so untrue. Quite the opposite.

 

[Maurice of Orange]

No. The first thing a casual [fan] will say is that they are turned off by the fighting which is not allowed in other real sports.

From the casual fans or fans that I’ve talked to that don’t really watch hockey they have told me the first thing they notice is the scrums and fights, some were even surprised the refs let them fight bare knuckles on skates, they even think the goalies fighting each other were even more entertaining and couldn’t get enough of it.

 

[Sempiternal]

No it doesn't need to go..., but it is almost extinct anyways. Very few goons left.

 

[golfortennis]

Even if Lucic had pummeled Cooke, he (Cooke) wouldn't have changed his behavior. Cooke got zero games suspended for the Savard hit (when even his own teammates thought he should have been suspended). The hit was technically legal at the time (if reprehensible) and the league changed the rules as a result.

So Cooke didn't even try to change his behavior until the McDonagh hit earned him a lengthy suspension. No amount of face-punching was going to change his behavior, it was the suspension that finally did it.

Again if the Refs/DOPS do their respective jobs then intentionally dirty hits/plays would be extremely rare because no player wants to cost their team the game, or themselves a paycheck. They (dirty hits/plays) are in fact rarer than they used to be, but then a lot of those plays were committed by fourth line goons trying to justify their existence beyond just punching the face of the other teams goon. There's definitely room for improvement though with the calling of penalties/DOPS enforcement.

With no dirty play there's no reason for fighting. But dirty play stubbornly persists and as long as it persists without adequate penalties/enforcement by the league I'm ok with players having some measure of defending themselves/their team with fighting.

Could easily do without it though.

They rarer, yes, but I think given the speed of the game, they are more dangerous. I'm still shocked (but certainly relieved) someone hasn't had a really bad injury from the hitting from behind that is allowed to happen. Some of these dirty plays at the speed they are going could be extremely bad.

What I do not understand is how Colin Campbell keeps his job, and so long as he is there, fighting will be necessary because the DOPS is not going to do anything.

 

[EazyE1]

Not trying to be a dick, but so what? There is risk in everything we do, it's our job as an adult to decide if it's worth the risk. Something that seems to be lost on this current generation. Everyone want's to be safe. Everyone want's to feel secure.

Where do we stop?

No more F1? No more WRC? No more NFL? No more Rock Climbing? No more NHRA? No more sky diving? No more Nascar? No more driving to work? No more flying in a plane? No more putting up your Christmas lights!!

Where do you make the cut-off to satisfy your need to ensure we all go home safe and sound??

Let's just all stay in the basement and eat oatmeal, problem solved.

Probably no more getting out of bed to turn the TV on while were at it. No more getting out of bed and going potty because it could flood and drown someone

 

[Dickie Dunn]

The lawyers will end fighting in the NHL, they almost have done it already.

 

[DontLaughAtThat]

Fighting isn't even entertaining like it used to be. It barely happens, and when it does almost all of it is just dudes wrestling each other. The whole "code" thing is also incredibly corny and lame. Like when Nick Foligno fought Corey Perry for no reason.

For the people saying you need it to prevent 'acts of violence' - how about the refs actually call the rules and how about we actually punish players for doing stupid and dangerous shit

If they did this Tom Wilson would be out of the league by now, and Erik Karlsson would still be able to skate bc Matt Cooke would've been looking gone he ruined his career

 

[74 others]

Fighting is slowly disappearing anyways.

 

[holy]

“Fighting has got to go” in a Chris Rock voice.