Fighting has to go

[Sheppy]

Wrong. Ok, forget Olympics. Think of IIHF tournaments at all levels. U-20, U-18, men's Group A, Group B. Virtually no fighting and the game is great. You don't need to have superstars in order to enjoy a wonderful game of hockey without fights. Fighting is a really just a North American thing that is simply because Americans love violence. It is kind of like phony WWE wrestling, stupid thing that nobody outside of North America cares about. If it was gone nobody would suffer.

This doesn't make sense. It's in no way like professional wrestling.

 

[VVP]

The actual act of fighting in hockey rarely leads to brain injuries. Hockey fights are very sloppy, most fights last less than 30 seconds and because they're grabbing each other's shoulders, more often than not, not a single punch lands cleanly. Slipping and falling, pushing each other to ice, contact with the ground usually is what causes brain injuries. Even in the given example. So if the idea is to combat brain injury, taking fighting away doesn't work to that end basically at all.

I'd venture that the majority of concussions in hockey aren't from fighting or even checking but incidental collisions and/or trip and falls. I'm a big MMA/wrestling fan. I've long been very critical of boxing for the reason that I think it's a practically useless sport that promotes brain injury. Hockey fights are not "bare-knuckle boxing", they are two guys clinching until one of them is able to drag the other down. There is some inherent risk in taking someone down on ice but incidents like the aforementioned are freak accidents. And hockey is, inevitably, full of those.

Wrong again. When people post things they are clueless about that tells you nobody should listen to them. Fighting on the skates leads to some of the most devastating knockouts from single punches. It is all in the mechanics of it. Yes, falling on the ice after doesn't help but your statement is just WRONG. Go and watch some of the hockey knockouts, they are devastating.

 

[Panthaz89]

what does the majority have to do with anything? maybe the majority of fans would like to make helmets optional again, or make hits targeting the head legal again, who gives a shit?

You are saying the NHL won't care when they lose fans and revenue? Silly

 

[Panthaz89]

You’re entitled to your opinions but not your facts. Ratings have consistently gone up and fighting has gone down. Less fighting isn’t scaring people away from hockey. Casuals may tune in but they don’t stay. I know plenty that fit that too.

Not to mention WSH/NYR ratings were a lot lower than expected last season

Ratings always consistently go up but NHL has fallen in comparison to other major sports.

 

[kmo429]

Fighting is likely responsible for a tiny percentage of the head trauma across the nhl. Basic body checks into the boards probably cause more damage. Think of the NFL where the big blind side head shots are terrifying, but it’s really the OL/DL who gave the greatest consequences because they get rattled on every play

 

[MartyOwns]

You are saying the NHL won't care when they lose fans and revenue? Silly

did they lose fans when they got rid of helmets or hits to the head? if you stop watching hockey because pointless fights are eliminated, you weren’t a hockey fan to begin with.

and i’m not even saying eliminate fighting, i would start with harsher penalties than 5 minutes. make fighting a game misconduct and a 1 game suspension. sitting for 5 minutes isn’t real consequence- give them real consequences and watch fighting drop, and you’ll see how utterly pointless they were to begin with.

 

[Sheppy]

did they lose fans when they got rid of helmets or hits to the head? if you stop watching hockey because pointless fights are eliminated, you weren’t a hockey fan to begin with.

and i’m not even saying eliminate fighting, i would start with harsher penalties than 5 minutes. make fighting a game misconduct and a 1 game suspension. sitting for 5 minutes isn’t real consequence- give them real consequences and watch fighting drop, and you’ll see how utterly pointless they were to begin with.

The game is better with fighting & physicality. The players want to keep it. It's pretty simple.

 

[IceNeophyte]

Ratings always consistently go up but NHL has fallen in comparison to other major sports.

Ratings are expressed as a share of total viewership, not viewer count. How can share of total viewership for sports go up among all sports?

 

[MartyOwns]

You're so emotional haha.

If you Google "biggest hockey knockouts" of course there is some intense footage but I'm talking about frequency and as a percentage of total fights. It's very low. Those highlights are individual instances out of many potential samples spanning a large period of time. If you disagree you likely dont watch much hockey to begin with so the NHL wouldnt really care about your opinion anyways.

so let’s agree that the odds of getting seriously hurt or dying is low. what is the benefit that fighting provides that makes it worth that risk? there is none. it’s not the 80’s anymore.

The game is better with fighting & physicality. The players want to keep it. It's pretty simple.

i literally addressed this an hour ago, i’m not going to rewrite it for ya

 

[Panthaz89]

Wrong again. When people post things they are clueless about that tells you nobody should listen to them. Fighting on the skates leads to some of the most devastating knockouts from single punches. It is all in the mechanics of it. Yes, falling on the ice after doesn't help but your statement is just WRONG. Go and watch some of the hockey knockouts, they are devastating.

A lot of Buffalo fans loved Kaleta and he was basically expelled from the league for hitting not fighting because its way more dangerous. A guy coming full speed at someone who doesn't know they are there and guy who willingly agreed to get into a fight is a very different situation. Your silly comparisons of "LOOK how great hockey is when they are basically the all star units from a certain selection of players rather than actual rosters that had to be built and not handpicked stars from ever team" is even more of a strawman than anyone puts up for fighting. Oh wow who thought a team full of stars from there respective leagues that are actually trying would be fun to watch. Unfortunately teams don't have the benefit of putting stars on their 3rd and 4th lines and 3rd pairings. I also don't enjoy watching a team like US, Canada, Russia,Finland, Sweden play lesser teams in those same competitions and light them up for 15-0 in the box score.

 

[NHL Review]

Ratings always consistently go up but NHL has fallen in comparison to other major sports.

Yes and that has nothing to do with fighting, it has to do with marketing of the league and its star players

If the league actually enforced its rules and marketed the stars better like the NBA or MLB does it’s ratings would be a lot higher. You can’t hate both since they’re “soft” (I’m not even an NBA fan but come on) and also complain about growing the game

 

[kabidjan18]

so let’s agree that the odds of getting seriously hurt or dying is low. what is the benefit that fighting provides that makes it worth that risk? there is none. it’s not the 80’s anymore.



i literally addressed this an hour ago, i’m not going to rewrite it for ya

Well the argument is that there is value that it adds, particularly players and former players will be the first to argue this. Even with the lack of "enforcers", normal players take fights against other players because, allegedly, it discourages risky behavior on the part of the other team. Refs both cannot and do not catch all questionable or even illegal hits, otherwise dangerous maneuvers. And fighting is a way to discourage that player from doing it again, without just hitting him or his teammates with questionable hits yourself. I've never played, so I can't attest to this rationale or sentiment, but it's something that seemingly most players agree exists.

 

[PK Cronin]

I don't understand the neanderthals who jump up and start cheering when a fight is about to happen, other than that I don't care if they ban it or not, I watch to see my team hopefully score more goals than the opposing team by the end if the game, big hits and fights I couldn't care less about

Yeah, all those Neanderthals who like the MMA, Boxing, or any other combat sport.

I have no problem with two grown men deciding they want to fight or participate in a sport associated with brain injuries. That's their choice to make. If they don't want to accept the risk, they can choose not to participate. The only real issue is when the leagues try to cover up how harmful something is, which misleads players about the safety of what they're doing. As long as everyone is on the same page, who cares?

 

[Bruisebros2426]

did they lose fans when they got rid of helmets or hits to the head? if you stop watching hockey because pointless fights are eliminated, you weren’t a hockey fan to begin with.

and i’m not even saying eliminate fighting, i would start with harsher penalties than 5 minutes. make fighting a game misconduct and a 1 game suspension. sitting for 5 minutes isn’t real consequence- give them real consequences and watch fighting drop, and you’ll see how utterly pointless they were to begin with.

Fighting has been on the decline for like 10 years. The idea that it's out of control and needs to be reigned in with further penalties doesn't make sense. There were maybe 200 fights last season. Even in the late 2000s there were probably 4 times as many. At this point most fights are emotional and based on the game. Leave it the f*** alone.

 

[MartyOwns]

Well the argument is that there is value that it adds, particularly players and former players will be the first to argue this. Even with the lack of "enforcers", normal players take fights against other players because, allegedly, it discourages risky behavior on the part of the other team. Refs both cannot and do not catch all questionable or even illegal hits, otherwise dangerous maneuvers. And fighting is a way to discourage that player from doing it again, without just hitting him or his teammates with questionable hits yourself. I've never played, so I can't attest to this rationale or sentiment, but it's something that seemingly most players agree exists.

it served a purpose 30 years ago, but it doesn't anymore. the notion that guys don't hit recklessly because of fighting isn't based in evidence or reality. fights happen after dirty hits, clean hits, and after no hits, it doesn't curtail anything. rule changes (targeting the head, letting up if you see numbers, mandatory helmets etc) are the catalyst for change. the idea that players want to keep it in is irrelevant. next time a cop pulls you over, tell him that most motorists want to speed and see how far you get. safety rules are there for a reason.

however, i will agree that officiating as a whole needs to be re-evaluated, with more calls coming from off-ice officials that can watch the entire playing surface. the game is way too fast for 2 refs to catch everything.

Fighting has been on the decline for like 10 years. The idea that it's out of control and needs to be reigned in with further penalties doesn't make sense. There were maybe 200 fights last season. Even in the late 2000s there were probably 4 times as many. At this point most fights are emotional and based on the game. Leave it the f*** alone.

so they're on the decline, they serve no real purpose, but we'd better keep it in even though it is (by design) potentially devastating to a player's health. makes sense to me!

 

[DANOZ28]

until the nhl has enough refs on the ice to call all cheapshots we need players to stick up for teammates which includes getting physical.

 

[PK Cronin]

it served a purpose 30 years ago, but it doesn't anymore. the notion that guys don't hit recklessly because of fighting isn't based in evidence or reality. fights happen after dirty hits, clean hits, and after no hits, it doesn't curtail anything. rule changes (targeting the head, letting up if you see numbers, mandatory helmets etc) are the catalyst for change. the idea that players want to keep it in is irrelevant. next time a cop pulls you over, tell him that most motorists want to speed and see how far you get. safety rules are there for a reason.

however, i will agree that officiating as a whole needs to be re-evaluated, with more calls coming from off-ice officials that can watch the entire playing surface. the game is way too fast for 2 refs to catch everything.



so they're on the decline, they serve no real purpose, but we'd better keep it in even though it is (by design) potentially devastating to a player's health. makes sense to me!

You're arbitrarily drawing a line about where safety begins because you want it to. Laws are a really bad comparison and don't actually bolster your position in any way. We know cigarettes are harmful, but they're legal. Safety rules are there for a reason.

 

[kabidjan18]

it served a purpose 30 years ago, but it doesn't anymore. the notion that guys don't hit recklessly because of fighting isn't based in evidence or reality. fights happen after dirty hits, clean hits, and after no hits, it doesn't curtail anything. rule changes (targeting the head, letting up if you see numbers, mandatory helmets etc) are the catalyst for change. the idea that players want to keep it in is irrelevant. next time a cop pulls you over, tell him that most motorists want to speed and see how far you get. safety rules are there for a reason.

however, i will agree that officiating as a whole needs to be re-evaluated, with more calls coming from off-ice officials that can watch the entire playing surface. the game is way too fast for 2 refs to catch everything.



so they're on the decline, they serve no real purpose, but we'd better keep it in even though it is (by design) potentially devastating to a player's health. makes sense to me!

No. It either worked then and works now, or it didn't work then and still doesn't work now. And you can argue the latter, but I don't think there's a reason to believe that it worked then but doesn't work now.

Also it's a difficult hypothesis to test because the league has never not had fighting so who knows, maybe there'd be even more egregious hits without it, maybe not, it's not something that we can conduct an experiment on we can only theorycraft or speak in hypotheticals.

See you've been trying to argue "it doesn't matter that most players want it" or "it doesn't matter that most fans want it" or "it doesn't matter that most executives want it" like...at some point it does matter that everyone wants it, even if you think in principle they shouldn't.

 

[MartyOwns]

You're arbitrarily drawing a line about where safety begins because you want it to. Laws are a really bad comparison and don't actually bolster your position in any way. We know cigarettes are harmful, but they're legal. Safety rules are there for a reason.

not sure if you know what arbitrary means, because i'm not drawing any arbitrary lines. hitting is dangerous- you can argue more dangerous than fighting- but it serves a purpose. i'm not interested in eliminating hitting. on the other hand, i have yet to see one legitimate reason to keep fighting that would justify the potential harm.

and smoking is a much worse comparison, actually. without even getting into the perversity of lobbying, there are tons of state and federal laws to regulate smoking. on top of that (speaking of arbitrary) i brought up speeding as something most people would like to show how flawed the 'popularity amongst the players' argument is. i doubt the majority of people want to keep cigarettes legal. for example, i'm a smoker and i think they should absolutely be illegal.

 

[Spirits]

but it’s really the OL/DL who gave the greatest consequences because they get rattled on every play

No, the linemen have low impact events constantly. Linebackers and DB's/WR's suffer more than anyone else from high impact hits.

 

[MartyOwns]

No. It either worked then and works now, or it didn't work then and still doesn't work now. And you can argue the latter, but I don't think there's a reason to believe that it worked then but doesn't work now.

it worked back then because it was a completely different game, and every team carried guys who couldn't play the game, only fight. there's not a lot of room left for neanderthal slugs (unless you're james dolan).

Also it's a difficult hypothesis to test because the league has never not had fighting so who knows, maybe there'd be even more egregious hits without it, maybe not, it's not something that we can conduct an experiment on we can only theorycraft or speak in hypotheticals.

there are plenty of leagues that don't allow fighting, if you have evidence that they have more frequently dangerous hits i'd love to see it.

See you've been trying to argue "it doesn't matter that most players want it" or "it doesn't matter that most fans want it" or "it doesn't matter that most executives want it" like...at some point it does matter that everyone wants it, even if you think in principle they shouldn't.

i'm not sure how else to explain how flawed this is. if most people wanted gladiator fights to the death at the coliseum, should we do that?

things change, societies evolve. and make no mistake about it, when someone dies out there from landing on the ice wrong or taking a punch to the temple, fighting will be gone. it's just so sad that we're apparently so primitive that we have to wait until a tragedy happens to react.

 

[kabidjan18]

it worked back then because it was a completely different game, and every team carried guys who couldn't play the game, only fight. there's not a lot of room left for neanderthal slugs (unless you're james dolan).

This shows that they prioritized it more, not that there was a functional difference.

there are plenty of leagues that don't allow fighting, if you have evidence that they have more frequently dangerous hits i'd love to see it.

Euro leagues are actually moving towards allowing it.

i'm not sure how else to explain how flawed this is. if most people wanted gladiator fights to the death at the coliseum, should we do that?

things change, societies evolve. and make no mistake about it, when someone dies out there from landing on the ice wrong or taking a punch to the temple, fighting will be gone. it's just so sad that we're apparently so primitive that we have to wait until a tragedy happens to react.

You're entitled to your opinion. Butit's just your opinion. Other people disagree and they have their reasons. It's as simple as that. You think you're a moral expert but so do they, so it comes down to a vote. Right now you dont have the votes.

 

[Bruisebros2426]

it served a purpose 30 years ago, but it doesn't anymore. the notion that guys don't hit recklessly because of fighting isn't based in evidence or reality. fights happen after dirty hits, clean hits, and after no hits, it doesn't curtail anything. rule changes (targeting the head, letting up if you see numbers, mandatory helmets etc) are the catalyst for change. the idea that players want to keep it in is irrelevant. next time a cop pulls you over, tell him that most motorists want to speed and see how far you get. safety rules are there for a reason.

however, i will agree that officiating as a whole needs to be re-evaluated, with more calls coming from off-ice officials that can watch the entire playing surface. the game is way too fast for 2 refs to catch everything.



so they're on the decline, they serve no real purpose, but we'd better keep it in even though it is (by design) potentially devastating to a player's health. makes sense to me!

Do you play NHL hockey? Acting as if it serves no real purpose from the standpoint of a spectator with no skin in the game is kind of ridiculous. Poll after poll, players say it has a place in the game and that it shouldn't be abolished. Tell me how your understanding of the role of fighting in the game trumps the opinions and feelings of the actual players who have the most to lose from doing it. Please, can't wait to hear it.

 

[MartyOwns]

This shows that they prioritized it more, not that there was a functional difference.




Euro leagues are actually moving towards allowing it.



You're entitled to your opinion. Butit's just your opinion. Other people disagree and they have their reasons. It's as simple as that. You think you're a moral expert but so do they, so it comes down to a vote. Right now you dont have the votes.

most of that was nonsense and i’m done with the discussion, but i will say you don’t have to be a moral expert to see that two guys bare knuckle boxing on ice serves no purpose and is inherently dangerous.

 

[MartyOwns]

Do you play NHL hockey? Acting as if it serves no real purpose from the standpoint of a spectator with no skin in the game is kind of ridiculous. Poll after poll, players say it has a place in the game and that it shouldn't be abolished. Tell me how your understanding of the role of fighting in the game trumps the opinions and feelings of the actual players who have the most to lose from doing it. Please, can't wait to hear it.

i played goalie, not that it’s relevant. but i can’t continue this discussion- if you can’t wait to hear my reply, go back and read because i’ve already addressed how stupid the popularity argument is.