The OP hasn’t actually been precisely answered in one place, so I’ll do it;
Hockey players don’t use skates and sticks to fight because if they do, they will be suspended or banned from the league. Simple fighting is merely an in-game penalty; fighting with weapons results in very serious repercussions.
Yeah, I always get his first name wrong. It’s Dave who played for Philly, not Phil who played for the Davis Cup.
Because they banned Bowie Knives from the ice. :rolleyes:
Actually, Bosda, they call them ice skates. In 1989 Clint Malarchuk very nearly died after he got his neck sliced open by a skate. There’s a series of three videos on YouTube. The first one is here:
In fact sometimes it’s quite gentlemanly . 
I was looking for that clip — thanks for dredging it up.
I’ve seen some fights where the opponents seem not to give a flying hoot for convention. where they literally must be pulled apart. it is those situations to which i refer.
i mean, once a guy loses his cool like that what prevents him from going all out?
Because they’re not psychotic and don’t actually want to kill their opponent?
Calling him “Phil” was what really made him drop the gloves and go at it. 
The nasty stuff doesn’t happen during the fights usually. For example:
Chris Simon Slashes Ryan Hollweg
And this just happened last night. Chris Simon again. . .
Chris Simon Stomping on Rutuu’s Ankle
As has been mentioned already, fighting tends to have rules, so nasty stuff doesn’t happen that often. Although this year seems to have been pretty nasty with dirty hits, etc. I hope Simon gets his ass thrown from the league. And I’m an Islanders fan. There’s no room for that crap in pro hockey.
To sum up, they fight because it’s fun, and they don’t use weapons because that isn’t fun.