Why Does Ice Hockey Tolerate Fighting?

[PrivateTim]

I personally can not think of any other sport that involves the skill, the speed, the pace, the equipment, and the talent in a small enclosed space.

 

Generally hockey strategy involves matching up player versus player. This happens at a high pace and can lead to emotions rising higher and higher. Sometimes these emotions rise up to a level that a cheap shot is taken and then the other side retaliates. Usually in a fight.

 

Fighting in the last 10-15 years has been banned from 'minor hockey' It is still part of all professional and semi professional, junior and in a lot of cases major minor hockey. It has always been part of the game to fans, coaches, players and me

 

Cheap shots have been addressed for a while now, that is why there is less fighting than a while ago. When I grew up playing hockey, there was fighting, but obviously with the different level of skill and size of kids growing up, I am generally in agreement of the evolution of no fighting in minor hockey.

 

Also, in any level, a errant punch to an official at any level would result in major suspensions up to a year and fines against the player, the coach and the team.

 

To focus in on the fighting aspect alone in hockey is like focusing on tripping in soccer, clipping in football (I don't play water polo, but from what I read your nuts are fair game for what the ref doesn't see). It is part of the game and hopefully always will be. The example of tripping and clipping are two examples of serious penalties that can cause serious injury but I don't hear you calling for the total elimination of them from their sports. Fighting is part of the game and there are consequences for doing so. It is not condoned and there is a series of progressive discipline that is used.

 

Every sport has it's nasty side, just in hockey it is fighting.

 

Indoor football plays an intense bone crushing game in a small space. Football, indoor and out is often about man on man play as is soccer.

 

Tripping is soccer can draw you a yellow or red card very easily and it is a big focus for the officials. Ditto for football, lots of blocks have been removed from the sport and were removed in one season. Gone are crack-back blocks, hi-lo blocks, rolling blocks, trips and many other behaviors. Football is certainly every bit as physical ice hockey, but fights are rare because they are not tolerated. No one makes excuses for them.

 

"Nuts" are certainly not fair game in water polo and can draw a brutality ejection that will leave your team a man down for the entire game if the official deems it bad enough. Ditto for a punch thrown in water polo, if it lands you are almost certain to draw a major brutality and have your team play a man down the rest of the game so no one does it, or seldom does it. They are plenty of other ways for payback so you don't punch or kick in retaliation as a reaction, you mark it down mentally and wait until you are swimming back down the pool and the refs attention is someplace else.

 

Maybe you didn't pay attention to the NFL last season and see all the fines and players set down for the high hits and unnecessary hits. You probably won't see any this coming season because coaches won't tolerate an individual hurting the team through stupidity.

 

The other difference is that clips are seldom an intentional act, they happen through poor timing and techique, if the official thought the clip was deliberate and otherwise vicious, they can eject the player and you can be sure the league would further fine or suspend the player. Fighting is always a choice and intentional. No one throws a punch accidentially.

 

To say "Fighting is part of the game" followed immediately by. "It is not condoned" is contratictory. As long as people say "it is part of the game" it is being condoned. Other sports have cleaned up their acts, I still think it is time the NHL did likewise.

[methodwriter85]

Why you wanna ruin good things, Tim?

[wildone]

Why you wanna ruin good things, Tim?

 

Exactly

 

If the players and fans want it, really what say do you have in it?

 

I don't know how you can compare football to hockey though, in a sixty minute game the ball is in play is 11 minutes out of 60. So split that between the offense and defense and you have 5 1/2 minutes per player and then take out kicking probably brings it down to 5 minutes out of sixty in a game. In hockey there the average player plays between 15-20 minutes out of a 60 minute game. This does not include not doing anything but does include skating for the full shift. I think you would have been better off with comparing hockey to water polo in this case.

 

Are we going to lobby to take punching out of boxing next?

Edited June 6, 2011 by wildone

[W_L]

Well, if people want to avoid violence, just watch golf

 

I really don't follow Hockey that much until the Bruins finally got to the Stanley Cup this year. I started watching more and more after the final Lightnings vs. Bruins game. It drew my attention and the interesting field positions and open aggression got my interest.

 

I know many sports pundits from Football, Hockey, and basketball have argued this point; much of the old ideal of sports has degraded over the years due to the increase of rules, referee calls, publicity, and wealth into a shadow of their former selves. People watch sports for the thrill, not for the humanity, they watch soap operas for that.

 

I get the argument that sports should be made more safer, but the continual reduction of danger, risks, injuries, and everything else about games changes what made the game fun and interesting.

 

Tim, you out of all people, I thought would enjoy watching a good game, relaxing with a mug of brew, and kicking back with friends as your team kills the opposition. Every point is like an instant orgasm, every hard hit sends shivers down your spine, and every fight makes you just want more.

 

(Yeah, I know, I don't seem like the type, but I do love my sports nights out and ice cold Sam Adams. My theory is that the most intellectual people want times in their lives where they can turn off their brain and enjoy their animalistic side.)

[thephoenix]

Exactly

 

If the players and fans want it, really what say do you have in it?

 

Are we going to lobby to take punching out of boxing next?

 

Well, in hockey, you don't score any points for throwing punches, unlike boxing.

 

I've watched quite a few hockey games over the years and yet I think an all-out brawl is unnecessary, especially if the guys aren't fighting for the puck up against the boards or anything. Hockey has always been a fast-paced and rough sport but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Obviously, using hockey sticks in a fight are absolutely forbidden as it is assault with a weapon or something like that (I don't know the legal specifics.) There have been fist fights on the ice where guys were sent to the hospital, or worse.

 

What is it, really? A bitter rivalry between players.. or what?

 

Personally, the endorphins I get whenever playing a sport or working out overrides the testosterone when it comes to my mood.

 

I'm curious though. Why are all-out fights on the ice considered "part of the game", but fights anywhere else considered assault?

[TetRefine]

Hockey is not soccer. It takes a very physically tough person to play hockey, football, and other contact sports. Why do you think Americans hate soccer so much? Because there is no contact or physical punishment. Sports like football, hockey, basketball, etc flourish because it involves physical toughness not found in soccer. The fighting in hockey just adds to that love of physical contact for North American sports fans.

[methodwriter85]

Wow, Tet. I would love to see you tell Adam Phillips that soccer is a weakling sport. I triple-dog-dare you.

[TetRefine]

Wow, Tet. I would love to see you tell Adam Phillips that soccer is a weakling sport. I triple-dog-dare you.

 

Never said it was a weakling sport. Just not a physical one (compared to football, hockey, lacrosse, even basketball).

[Benji]

................ Who needs just fighting?

 

http://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2011/6/6/2210222/aaron-rome-hit-nathan-horton-canucks-bruins-game-3

[TetRefine]

................ Who needs just fighting?

 

http://www.sbnation....s-bruins-game-3

 

The Canucks can not go more then one game without playing dirty. This is partly the NHL's fault for not coming down in the obvious biting incident.

Edited June 7, 2011 by TetRefine

[W_L]

Hey, we still won 8-1, so it's cool with me if a little biting makes my team perform better.

 

Whatever they have in their system must transfer through the bite, maybe the Canucks are Vampires

[PrivateTim]

Never said it was a weakling sport. Just not a physical one (compared to football, hockey, lacrosse, even basketball).

 

Soccer is much more physical than basketball.

[Graeme]

From a complete outsider's point of view (I've never even seen an ice hockey match, though I've seen field hockey - which doesn't have fights), I've got a few comments:

 

1. The comment that professional sport is about making money is 100% correct.

 

2. A corollary of the first point is that rule changes are made to help with making money. An example is that the Australian Football League (AFL) has experimented with rule changes to speed up the game, because that's what they believe the fans want - and it's the fans attending games that makes them money. Similar, various rule changes in basketball (the sport I was heavily involved with when I was younger), such as the 3-second rule, the shot clock, and the centre line violation rule were all introduced to increase the pace of the game, and to try to maintain a balance between offence and defence (with a slight imbalance towards offence, as scoring goals is 'exciting').

 

3. Fights in hockey have nothing to do with the sport itself. Everything said previously in this thread to explain why fights occur will apply equally to other sports. The fact that fights occur in other sports is enough to demonstrate the point.

 

4. Fights in hockey are tolerated because the professional bodies (the ones out to make money) believe that the fans want them to stay. The fact that so many people here are supporting them is evidence towards saying that the professional bodies are right.

 

5. Until or unless there is a significant public outcry against the fights, nothing will change because it's not in the best interest of those making the money.

 

Having said all of that, I personally don't think condoning fighting is a good idea, long term. Condoning aggression - that's fine. Condoning limited violence - also fine. The key word in that is 'limited'. Other sports have drawn that line to excluding fighting. Hockey hasn't. That's the choice of the people in charge of the sport... which is driven by what they believe the fans want.

[BlueSoxSWJ]

Some observations from an avid hockey fan (Boston Bruins season ticket holder):

 

First, fighting on the ice just isn't that dangerous, because the fighters have little to no leverage. In the two seasons I've had tickets, the Bruins have been involved in 1 fight that resulted in an injury. (Andrew Ference broke a bone in Adam Burish's face after Burish took a late slapshot on Tuukka Rask after the whistle.) Also, possibly unknown to fans who only follow the playoffs, most NHL fights aren't emotional, they're strategic - a move to change the momentum in a fast-paced sport that allows only 1 timeout per game. In football, you have 3 timeouts per half and get the ball after your opponent scores (well, except on a safety). In basketball, each team gets approximately 128 timeouts per game. Soccer is played at such a slow pace that you can stall the momentum just by keeping possession near midfield for a while instead of attacking. I don't think I even need to address baseball. Regular season fighting is often less about actually fighting the other guy and more about taking a de facto timeout. When they put mics on the players, it's common to hear the fighters telling each other "good fight" after the linesmen break it up.

 

Second, the league has changed a lot of the rules around fighting to take out the things that did lead to injuries. The "third man in" rule keeps fights to one-on-one fighting, since many injuries happened when a player already fighting took a hit from a second opponent. The league now automatically hands out a ten game ban to anyone leaving the bench during an incident. Even earlier this year when a player on the Islanders starting taking cheap shots at the Pittsburgh goaltender, the Penguin who left the bench to protect his goalie got the automatic 10. The league also tries to calm games down if it gets to the point of a line brawl by making any fights that break out while the puck is not in play come with an automatic misconduct penalty on top of the fighting major. (This means that if multiple fights happen at once, only the one the refs deem broke out first gets just 5 minute majors. Every other pairing gets 5 for fighting and 10 for misconduct, usually sending those players off for the rest of the period.)

 

But again, to answer the initial question, even though it's already been addressed, fighting is condoned in hockey because it makes money. Fans enjoy the fights, and fans also enjoy the way the players are allowed to police their own game. One of the biggest complaints right now about the NBA is that the slightest confrontation between players results in a quick double technical, so there's no way for the players to settle their differences without the refs taking over the game.

 

And really, wouldn't everyone's job be better off if, when you get frustrated, you could have a good fight with someone, sit in timeout for 5 minutes, then get back to work?

[TetRefine]

Soccer is much more physical than basketball.

 

I strongly disagree with that point. Even though basketball is not a "contact sport", there is still a whole lot of contact. Much more then I have ever seen in ANY soccer game. The bat-shit insane fans are what turns soccer into a contact sport, not the actual sport itself.

[Graeme]

First, fighting on the ice just isn't that dangerous, because the fighters have little to no leverage. In the two seasons I've had tickets, the Bruins have been involved in 1 fight that resulted in an injury. (Andrew Ference broke a bone in Adam Burish's face after Burish took a late slapshot on Tuukka Rask after the whistle.) Also, possibly unknown to fans who only follow the playoffs, most NHL fights aren't emotional, they're strategic - a move to change the momentum in a fast-paced sport that allows only 1 timeout per game. In football, you have 3 timeouts per half and get the ball after your opponent scores (well, except on a safety). In basketball, each team gets approximately 128 timeouts per game. Soccer is played at such a slow pace that you can stall the momentum just by keeping possession near midfield for a while instead of attacking. I don't think I even need to address baseball. Regular season fighting is often less about actually fighting the other guy and more about taking a de facto timeout. When they put mics on the players, it's common to hear the fighters telling each other "good fight" after the linesmen break it up.

 

I wondered whether this was happening. If it's part of the 'rules', teams will try to use it to gain an advantage. We have a situation in Aussie Rules football where a team will sometimes deliberately score a point for the other team... because it gives them controlled possession, and reduces the risk of a goal (worth six points) from being scored by the opposing team. It's a case of using the rules to maximise the benefit to the team.

 

I don't know where you get your 128 timeouts per game of basketball from, though, unless you're counting every time where a player doesn't have to be actively involved in the game. If you count it that way, then I suspect hockey has more than one timeout per game

[TetRefine]

I don't know where you get your 128 timeouts per game of basketball from, though, unless you're counting every time where a player doesn't have to be actively involved in the game. If you count it that way, then I suspect hockey has more than one timeout per game

 

I think he was being sarcastic because it does seem like each team has a ton of timeouts and the coaches always seem to use them in a short period of time, one after the other.

[PrivateTim]

I strongly disagree with that point. Even though basketball is not a "contact sport", there is still a whole lot of contact. Much more then I have ever seen in ANY soccer game.

 

[TetRefine]

 

 

But those were exceptions to the norm. Playing basketball, guys are constantly throwing elbows down in the paint and there is a lot of pushing and shoving all the time. Nothing near the amount of physical contact that happens in basketball happens in soccer. I played soccer up until fourth grade (then I switched to football), and I also played basketball until 7th grade. Even at the fourth grade level, it was still pretty physical, and none of that ever happened in soccer except for the occasional accident.

[Graeme]

How did a conversation about fighting in ice hockey devolve into the physicality of soccer vs basketball?

 

Having said that, I still remember the section of the basketball rule book (I was a referee for many years) that said that while basketball was theoretically a non-contact sport, it's not possible for ten players to move rapidly over a confined area without making contact. It was up to the referees to determine what contact was incidental and what wasn't.

 

Now... can someone tell me what this has to do with fighting in hockey?

[TetRefine]

How did a conversation about fighting in ice hockey devolve into the physicality of soccer vs basketball?

 

Having said that, I still remember the section of the basketball rule book (I was a referee for many years) that said that while basketball was theoretically a non-contact sport, it's not possible for ten players to move rapidly over a confined area without making contact. It was up to the referees to determine what contact was incidental and what wasn't.

 

Now... can someone tell me what this has to do with fighting in hockey?

 

I made a reference to the whimpification of North American sports, and how its starting to resemble more and more like soccer, aka the anti-North American sport. And somehow it involved basketball. I think fighting is awesome because the NHL is holding out on the whimpification that the NFL is essentially doing.

[Graeme]

I made a reference to the whimpification of North American sports, and how its starting to resemble more and more like soccer, aka the anti-North American sport. And somehow it involved basketball. I think fighting is awesome because the NHL is holding out on the whimpification that the NFL is essentially doing.

 

You are aware, I hope, that the USA did better in the last soccer World Cup than Australia (the world's leading sporting nation, not that I'm biased - and we don't play ice hockey, at least not seriously)? I don't really get what you mean by calling soccer the 'anti-North American sport'.

 

Seriously, though - are you trying to say that sport needs violence? What about sports such as swimming and tennis (two sports where both Australia and the USA tend to do well). Are they whimpy sports because they don't have fights? Gymnastics? Baseball? Cricket? (just threw that last one in to see if you're still reading ).

 

I can agree that the efforts to stamp-out excessive violence in some sports can go too far. I was told by many players when I was a basketball referee that the game I was ref'ing wasn't netball (no offence intended to the netball players - I'm just quoting what they told me ) because they thought I was being too quick to call fouls.

 

But to imply that sports have to be violent (and potentially extremely violent) or otherwise they're considered to be whimpy - that seems a bit of a stretch to me. Hopefully I've misinterpreted what you've said

[W_L]

Maybe we should have some kind of legalize death matches in the US, where people can kill each other in more extreme versions of sports? (I don't remember which science fiction story had this, probably Heinlein, but the idea just came my mind)

 

I kind of agree that some sports are better with a bit of danger mixed in; I understand that safety of the player needs to be addressed, but how the players play the game is up to them.

[TetRefine]

You are aware, I hope, that the USA did better in the last soccer World Cup than Australia (the world's leading sporting nation, not that I'm biased - and we don't play ice hockey, at least not seriously)? I don't really get what you mean by calling soccer the 'anti-North American sport'.

 

Seriously, though - are you trying to say that sport needs violence? What about sports such as swimming and tennis (two sports where both Australia and the USA tend to do well). Are they whimpy sports because they don't have fights? Gymnastics? Baseball? Cricket? (just threw that last one in to see if you're still reading ).

 

I can agree that the efforts to stamp-out excessive violence in some sports can go too far. I was told by many players when I was a basketball referee that the game I was ref'ing wasn't netball (no offence intended to the netball players - I'm just quoting what they told me ) because they thought I was being too quick to call fouls.

 

But to imply that sports have to be violent (and potentially extremely violent) or otherwise they're considered to be whimpy - that seems a bit of a stretch to me. Hopefully I've misinterpreted what you've said

 

I think you misinterpreted what I was trying to say. What I meant was, most of the popular American sports involve some sort of contact (football, hockey, lacrosse, even basketball, etc), and I think that is part of the reason they are so popular. Not all sports need violence to be good or entertaining. Just because they don't have violence does not make them wimpy. But when a sport like football, which involves a ton of very rough contact, starts to have rules that strictly limits some of the contact that has been allowed for years it seems like the NFL is getting away from that toughness. Its an essential part of the sport.

 

I don't believe in fundamentally changing an integral part of the game (ex. blindside hits in football or fighting in hockey) because it ruins a part of it. The fans love it, as do the players, so leave it like it is.

 

And no I wasn't aware of how the US did in the World Cup. I haven't watched or paid attention to more then 5 minutes of a soccer game since I was like 9.

Edited June 8, 2011 by TetRefine

[MidNight_Love]

Only reason why I go to live hockey, THE FIGHTS FTW! People love a good fight.