Is is a strategy? Do some of the palyers get mad enough to want to fight and if they do, how do they know it won’t turn in to a roughing penalty? Are the fights planned?
The Fayetteville Fire Ants won again tonight without a fight. So how do the players know who to sqare off against?
Sgt Schwartz
Some unkind comment about the other’s choice of nailpolish, that auburn highlights are so last-season or a bra-strap showing and off they go.
Hockey is a physical game, and tensions tend to run high all the time. Something happens, i.e. someone gets tripped, gets a cheap shot etc. etc. That person gets pissed, skates up to the offender, tosses his stick and gloves aside and a fight starts. Literally one player throws down the gauntlet and challenges the other to a fight.
Heck, even the relatively genteel (and boring as hell) baseball has the occasional donnybrook. If you could get twelve guys in a high-speed contact-sport and not get the occasional macho square dance, I’d be surprised. Heck, Chris Ferguson of the Ants has 67 penalty minutes in 19 games. Though pretty minor by NHL standards (pun intended), I’m sure he ain’t a choirboy.
I always find it funny that the referees just kind of skate around, waiting for them to fall down before they break it up.
Gerald Eskenazi describes this in his book The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pro Hockey. The two linemen (not the referee, who is busy making note of who’ll get the appropriate penalties) watch the players going at it and warn off any third player from jumping in, which experience says is typically the trigger for bench-clearing brawls. When the punching stops and the players clench, as inevitably happens, the linemen can step in and break it up, usually talking calmly to the players with statements like “Had enough?” and “Okay, you’ve had your fun.” Doing so too early invites one of the over-excited players to swing on an official, and that’s bad news all around (ref: the Richard Riot of 1955). Basically, the best solution is to let the two players tucker themselves out. The crowd loves it and rarely does anyone get hurt when it’s just fists. When the sticks start swinging is a whole other story.
Ok, THAT was freakin’ high-larious. 
Fighting is way down in the NHL, by the way; many so-called enforcers are now out of a job.
Awesome video!!!
Sgt Schwartz
I knew it! Hockey is pro wrestling on skates!
Actually, dogbutler isn’t far off the mark. Sometimes players will be in the faceoff circle, one will ask the other “ya wanna go?” and the gloves are dropped as soon as the whistle blows.
Sometimes there is bad blood between individual players from previous games.
Also, players will protect their teammates. We have two players who are short (but very fast) and our guys are quick to defend them from larger players who go after them.
Sgt. Schwartz - did you go to the game? The FireAntz were playing the Columbus Cottonmouths - I’m corresponding secretary for their Booster Club and a sponsor for #23, Connor McDonald. Our Coach/GM, Jerome Bechard, was known as quite the goon during his skating days in the ECHL, but he doesn’t coach a goon team. He knows the fans like a good fight, and also knows the value of a fight in sparking a team thats not playing well. In this video you see their goalie skating by drinking his water. You don’t see him taunting our goalie. We were behind by three points in that game; Rycs fight really woke the guys up. Their guy got in a few good punches; Rycs needed 4 stitches over his eye.
Our guys don’t just fight for the sake of fighting. We don’t have bad blood with the FireAntz. If you make it down this way for a game, be sure to let me know! I’ll buy you a drink.
Forgot to add; we came back to win that game! 
OK, the clip covers it pretty well. I saw the thread title and I came in here to say that sometimes it’s as simple as asking “You wanna go?” Or a variation of that, as the clip shows.
Fighting is on the decline because of increased penalties and suspensions. Several times I have seen guys who would normally drop the gloves and start throwing pause instead, and make sure the other guy is going to get into it too. Otherwise the player could put his team at a disadvantage with an instigator penalty.
A good percentage of fights do start exactly as the YouTube clip shows. The rest are in the heat of the moment, usually in retaliation for a perceived* dirty hit.
I was at the game last night, and it turned out to be a good one. Thanks for the explaination. I will be sure to let you know when I make it down there again. Thanks
Sgt Schwartz
True, but the NFL which is plenty violent on the field, has very, very few fights. This is simply because the league has decided fights are not good for business, and doesn’t tolerate them. Two fighting players can easily find themselves suspended for a season.
If the referees handed out game misconducts for fighting, or multiple game suspensions, there wouldn’t be any more fighting. Fights are tolerated by the league because fans like it. In most sports you’d be jeopardizing your career.
But only 5 games for stomping on a person’s head?
I cannot recall any instances were any NFL player was actually suspended for the year due to on the field action. Plus there are plenty of dirty moves in football. The major difference between the 2 sports is that Hockey doesn’t have facemasks.
5 games is over 1/4 of an NFL season!
But the NFL isn’t really known for being overly strict in its discipline. Players get arrested. Others test positive for steroids and are still fan favorites.
The NFL has tried to crack down from time to time on dangerous plays, but it never seems to work all that well and the suspended players (such as Bill Romanowski or John Lynch) act with incredulity that they did anything wrong.
If you like football, you pretty much have to buy into the violence and injury. If not, you are going to hate it.