Keep in mind that an average ice hockey shift is about 47 seconds, so it’s not like the enforcer will be taking the place of a skill player for that long. I know that field hockey has unlimited subs as well, but I don’t know how long they usually stay out there.
Yes, but there are a limited number of roster spots for a team and for a game. You can only have 23 active players on your roster, and you can only dress 20 for a game (and at least two have to be goalies). So you’re still giving up a spot for the enforcer, and either the enforcer will have to play multiple shifts or one of the other players will have to play more, and presumably get more fatigued.
And with the number of in-game injuries, using a roster spot for a goon means you have one less substitute defenseman or winger when a player goes down. Managing a roster for all eventualities means that the place for a goon is becoming less and less valuable.
My point was simply that Don Cherry misrepresented the “continuous action” notion of hockey and held there were no “breathers” to allow players to chill out. It’s just not true. Would also add players in other sports face the same sorts of goading, etc., and do not resort to fighting. This is because these games are regulated. While I would love to watch a cricket player bat in hand going after someone who taunted them, (“Call that cricket? More like rickets, I say, old man!”) it doesn’t happen. Fighting and other retaliation is not an inevitable part of hockey.
Fighting in hockey continues because it is encouraged. If a football player fights, he is thrown out of the game. Ditto for baseball. A hockey player who starts a fight spends 5 minutes in the sin bin along with the guy he fought. There is no real penalty for fighting. Back in the days when I followed hockey, only the referee could call a penalty and he had to watch the puck. So you could play as dirty as you like so long as you weren’t by the puck. The worst offender I ever saw in this regard was Gordie Howe. A great hockey player but as dirty as they came.
Don Cherry would have a fit if they stopped fighting. If only.
But the bench clearing brawls of yore are long gone because of rule changes to eliminate them. Coming on the ice from the bench is a game misconduct and suspension. Multiple instigator penalties is a game misconduct and a suspension.
Dave Schultz immediately sprang to mind. The guy would rack up more penalty minutes in a month than the entire rest of the team. I seem to recall him skating past the opposing bench and smacking someone with his stick. He was a total thug.
The NHL might not discourage fighting enough, but it certainly doesn’t encourage it. Your point about penalties is only true if both players agree to fight, or actively participate in the fight. If one person is clearly unwilling the instigator will get an additional two minute penalty and a game misconduct, and the attacked party may not get anything at all. And it’s now an automatic suspension for leaving the bench, and there’s a second referee, replay, and longer suspensions for anything egregious, although I would argue suspensions should be even longer than they are.
The NHL could have done more, and maybe they should have, but they were in a bit of a hard place given popular and player support for keeping fighting in the game. As it is fighting in hockey is dying a long slow death, and the enforcer is already pretty much dead because of rules the NHL has put into place. I suspect from the NHL’s perspective this is ideal - avoid a revolt of the hardcore fans, while slowly making the game more friendly to newcomers. Dinosaurs like Cherry and Mike Milbury are probably already having fits, but the old guard are slowly losing their hold on the game.