I’ve been watching a lot of classic NHL games and I see a lot less fighting than in today’s games. I’m tired of players that can’t skate, can’t shoot, and spend the whole game looking to start a fight. I"m tired of arenas encouraging the behavior by playing special fight music every time a fight breaks out. Fights slow down the pace of the game and they give players an extra rest.
I know fights are popular with the fans. Fans go to watch the fights, which is stupid. If they want to see a fight, buy tickets to a boxing match or MMA event.
Is the increase in fighting due to expansion? Teams are carrying some marginal players who wouldn’t see ice time if there were 6 fewer teams in the NHL.
Look up Gordie Howe, Dave Brown, Eddie Shore, King Clancy, Tim Horton, Tiger Williams, Dave Schultz, Craig MacTavish, Bob Probert, Ron Hextall…there have been fights as long as there has been hockey, and there have been goons and enforcers the whole time as well. The difference between then and now is that the “skill players” can’t usually fight so the goons step in and do it for them. Hell, the Philadelphia Flyers are known as the “Broad Street Bullies” for a reason. Back in the 1970s they won two Stanley Cups as much with their fists as with their sticks.
Whether or not there is too much fighting in the NHL is strictly a personal judgment call. I don’t think there is, but I do think that the level of non-fighting violence has increased substantially over the last 20 years. The Ace Bailey incident in 1933 and the Bill Masterton death on the ice (from a legit hit) in 1968 are the only really truly violent instances from the past that come to mind, but Dale Hunter running Pierre Turgeon in 1988 and the McSorley and Bertuzzi incidents were clearly excessive and there is no place in sports for that kind of stuff.
Hockey and fighting go together like bread and jam.
I agree that fans who watch games just to see the fighting is detrimental to the sport, but I must admit to a thrill a seeing one of my guys take out a bully from the other team. The game is fast and physical and confined to a small oval ring— there’s going to be heated moments between competitive players and allowing them to “blow off steam” with a short brawl should be permitted, as it is. Most of the fights I see involve two players hanging onto each other and flailing their arms while trying to keep balance. And once a player slips, the refs should immediately jump in.
Fighting is going to occur in any competitive sport. Refs and umps try to keep the peace because the risk of escalating brawls in football, baseball, basketball, and soccer can hurt the players as well as the game. Hockey players have heavy padding and stand on narrow blades— they can’t do much than stand in a clinch and swing their fists. It’s a bloody sport, but it’s also inherent to the sport and trying to restrict it will only lead to its becoming watered down.
Beaten to the punch (;)) on the issue of an actual increase in fighting, I will challenge your assertion that people go to NHL games just to see a fight. I pay $36 a ticket, and many nights go without seeing a fight. I sit in the cheap seats. If somebody wants to see a fight there are many better options for it.
Which is not to say that some, if not the majority, of people at any given NHL game want to see or mind seeing a fight. I would much rather see a hockey fight that what passes for manly posturing and ego stroking in other professional sports.
There is certainly less fighting now than there has been in the past; fighting has been at a low ebb for eight or nine years. Fewer than half of all NHL games have any fighting at all. The number of games with more than one fight is insignificant, amounting to about one such game out of every nine.
I have never in my entire life met anyone who said they went to NHL games to watch fights. I suspect if fighting were banned tomorrow it would have no noticeable impact on NHL attendance or popularity.
I’ve been to NHL games in Florida, Columbus, Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. All non-traditional hockey markets. At every single game, I’ve seen fans screaming for a fight.
The fights that annoy me the most are the fights in games that don’t mean anything. I was in LA one night watching a December game between the Blue Jackets and the Kings. Not a rivalry and no one is battling for a playoff spot in December. There were at least 3 fights, most of them among anonymous 4th line guys that are probably out of the NHL now. Plus, there was nothing to fight about. Sure, there was an awful lot of hooking going on that wasn’t being called. That’s fine as it was equally applied to both teams.
Here is an interesting wikipedia article on fighting.
I am a huge hockey fan, and I would LOVE to see fighting eliminated from the sport. What is the best hockey in the world? NHL Playoff hockey…and you know what? There are hardly ANY fights in the playoffs. A handful here and there, but nowhere near the amount in the regular season, and the game itself stars. I fell in love with hockey watching the college game, and fighting penalties are severe enough that there are only maybe 3-4 real fights per year, per team. And it’s wonderful.
My wife is one who will not watch hockey because of the fighting. She’s a huge sports fan…LOVES football, and knows more than the average guy football fan. She’d get into hockey, but can’t get over the senseless fighting. Violence as part of the game is one thing…pummeling each other for the hell of it is not.
I’m not going to stop being a fan regardless, but I’d like to see fighting at least severely reduced. I’d like to see the refs break up any fights, and make a fighting major a game misconduct penalty. It’d stop most fights. Make a second offense in the same season a one game suspension and a third offense a 3 game suspension, and you’ll see fighting gone.
That’s a bit of a myth. While fighting goes down some in the playoffs, there were 40 fighting majors in last year’s playoffs, in 87 games.
What I do wonder though, is why baseball never gets these complaints, when bench-clearing brawls are fairly common place and enthusiastically supported by fans, and when a big part of the game involves intentionally hitting the other team’s players with the baseball. In short, I don’t buy that hockey, and no other sport, has a problem with violence.
I think one difference in hockey is that the refs will allow the fight to occur. They don’t break it up right away.
In every other sport that I know of , fighting is stopped right away by the refs - or at least they try to. And in some cases fighting means you are ejected and can even miss a few games due to a suspension.
Bench clearing brawls are not commonplace in baseball. Even when the benches clear it’s not that common for it to escalate into a fight. But I’ve started to see a few complaints about how common it has become for pitchers to intentionally hit someone on the other team in response to an accidental HBP.
Fighting is an automatic ejection in baseball, and in every other team sport that I know of except professional hockey. In addition, players who fight are fined and suspended. Fights still occur (although bench-clearing brawls are hardly “common”; one or two per team per year is the norm, and most “brawls” involve two guys fighting and the rest watching), but there is a perception that the sport does what it can to discourage them.