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Fighting - Discussion

Fighting - yes or no
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May 12, 2021 at 12:15 a.m.
#1
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Hi everyone smile
I'm in the midst of writing an article for my school paper about fighting in the NHL. I personally believe it should be abandoned, but I would love to hear some reasoning from both sides. If you guys could provide some reasoning for why you chose which option (3rd one included!) in the comments that would be super helpful. I won't quote anyone unless I explicitly ask & recieve permission from you, just want to get a general sense of both sides' arguments. smile
May 12, 2021 at 1:28 a.m.
#2
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Fighting has a place in the game.
1. The NHL is about entertainment. Fans are entertained by fights. Arena's are louder for fights than they are for goals.
2. It gives the players a way to police themselves. Refs can only do so much, and they usually don't do enough in games.
3. Fights are between willing participants, and are usually pretty even matched.
4. Most fights now are more pushing/pulling than throwing/landing big punches. The helmet visor and fight straps on the jerseys are a couple of things the NHL has done to make fights more tame.
5. The days of the Probert/McSorley and the Broad Street Bullies are a thing of the past.
6. Guys with no skill except for fighting (goons) are almost extinct. A team might call up a goon a couple times a year, but they aren't every day roster players anymore.
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May 12, 2021 at 7:37 a.m.
#3
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Quoting: wabit
Fighting has a place in the game.
1. The NHL is about entertainment. Fans are entertained by fights. Arena's are louder for fights than they are for goals.
2. It gives the players a way to police themselves. Refs can only do so much, and they usually don't do enough in games.
3. Fights are between willing participants, and are usually pretty even matched.
4. Most fights now are more pushing/pulling than throwing/landing big punches. The helmet visor and fight straps on the jerseys are a couple of things the NHL has done to make fights more tame.
5. The days of the Probert/McSorley and the Broad Street Bullies are a thing of the past.
6. Guys with no skill except for fighting (goons) are almost extinct. A team might call up a goon a couple times a year, but they aren't every day roster players anymore.


Pretty much this, and fighting removes the physical game from the NHL because if they’d only have hitting, people would watch the NFL for that. Fighting is for men, hockey is a man sport.
May 16, 2021 at 1:59 p.m.
#4
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The days of teams having a designated enforcer are long gone, and the frequency of fights has been declining for many seasons as teams move away from it. Does it have a place in the game? Yes. Will it ever be eliminated completely? Probably yes, but not for a while. Do you know who leads the league in fights this year? Brady Tkachuk with 7, and Ottawa fans and management really wish he wouldn't fight so much.

The questions you have to ask the people who defend fighting are:
"Are you disappointed when you go to a game and there isn't a fight?"
"Fights are now down to about 1 every 6 games, down from 1 every 3 games 4 seasons ago, and 1 every 2 games 10 years ago. Do you watch fewer NHL games now that fighting isn't that prevalent?"
"Fights are much less prevalent in the playoffs, does this stop you from watching playoff games?"
"Would you still watch NHL games if fighting majors came with a game misconduct?"

Fighting will continue to drop and when it isn't a common occurrence the rule will change and no one will notice or care.
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May 16, 2021 at 10:57 p.m.
#5
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Quoting: skrymir
The days of teams having a designated enforcer are long gone, and the frequency of fights has been declining for many seasons as teams move away from it. Does it have a place in the game? Yes. Will it ever be eliminated completely? Probably yes, but not for a while. Do you know who leads the league in fights this year? Brady Tkachuk with 7, and Ottawa fans and management really wish he wouldn't fight so much.

The questions you have to ask the people who defend fighting are:
"Are you disappointed when you go to a game and there isn't a fight?"
"Fights are now down to about 1 every 6 games, down from 1 every 3 games 4 seasons ago, and 1 every 2 games 10 years ago. Do you watch fewer NHL games now that fighting isn't that prevalent?"
"Fights are much less prevalent in the playoffs, does this stop you from watching playoff games?"
"Would you still watch NHL games if fighting majors came with a game misconduct?"

Fighting will continue to drop and when it isn't a common occurrence the rule will change and no one will notice or care.


thank you so much for this. this was incredibly helpful and very much appreciated. i'm going to cite some of these in my article if that's okay with you?
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May 17, 2021 at 1:17 a.m.
#6
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Quoting: leafs_RtheBest
thank you so much for this. this was incredibly helpful and very much appreciated. i'm going to cite some of these in my article if that's okay with you?


No problem at all. The stats I quoted mainly came from this article (assuming you want a more reliable source than some rando on CapFriendly's forums):

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fighting-didnt-stop-in-the-nhl-bubble/
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May 17, 2021 at 4:35 p.m.
#7
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"Are you disappointed when you go to a game and there isn't a fight?"

- No, but that normally means everything went according to plan and nobody was a scumbag.

"Fights are now down to about 1 every 6 games, down from 1 every 3 games 4 seasons ago, and 1 every 2 games 10 years ago. Do you watch fewer NHL games now that fighting isn't that prevalent?"

- No.

"Fights are much less prevalent in the playoffs, does this stop you from watching playoff games?"

- No, but this is really a moot point as the physicality is tremendously increased.

"Would you still watch NHL games if fighting majors came with a game misconduct?"

- It would seriously depend on how they would plan on properly increasing discipline to make fighting unnecessary. Simply removing it right now without also changing any of the rules probably would not go well and will lead to other serious infractions, and probably more importantly, serious injuries.

These questions weren't very good. I love the game of hockey more than fights... I certainly watch for the game, and not for the goon squad of yesteryear. But, fighting is still a necessary component of the game. Calls aren't always going to be made right; it's a fast game. Unfortunately pretty much everyone in the hockey community can agree the DOPS is a wheel spin on whether they'll do it right or not. And while fighting and the physical part of the game is tremendously lower than it used to be even 10 years ago, it's still probably the most exciting part of the game... maybe even more so now that it's maybe even rarer than a goal scored, or a highway robbery save. Look at the game last night between FLA and TBL. Even the announcers were saying that was probably the best game of hockey they've seen in quite some time, due to all the hits and emotion in the game.

Take the infamous Wilson incident for example. The Rangers play the rest of the game with no retaliation, and how are they rewarded? With no proper discipline, in their minds. Whether you agree with that or not, the Rangers players surely did not. Had Wilson been suspended, I'm sure no fights would have taken place. Instead, since the Rangers put their faith in the DOPS, and they failed them, they felt they needed to do "something". If fighting was completely banished, I'm sure something much worse would have taken place that night rather than the 6 fights, in which maybe only 6 punches actually landed on the faces. I feel like all the changes the NHL has made to minimize fighting and injuries from it (mandatory visors, etc), has lowered fighting to an acceptable amount. You really can't lower fighting anymore than it is right now, without a misconduct or automatic suspension, which is just gonna push that emotion further down the line to something more serious, like a stick to the face, etc.

I don't think anyone in the world watches the NHL only for the fights... that's why there is UFC and boxing. But, fighting is part of the game. These questions is like asking people if there isn't a breakaway in a game, does that mean you don't like goal scoring? I don't know, it's just weird, completely leading questions...

As far as the poll, I voted "yes keep it it's awesome" because that's the only "yes" answer... I wouldn't say "it's awesome", but "it's necessary".
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May 18, 2021 at 9:05 a.m.
#8
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In addition to my wall of text, take this incident as well. If fighting was "outlawed", instead of this little fight, there probably would have been another knee on knee hit, that could have lead to serious injury. Then the Blues would have retaliated with another hit. And the domino effect keeps going. Instead, we have a nice fight, and everyone is happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDuSbgZ0qKY

At the end of the day, it's mind boggling how the refs missed this regardless... center ice, just dished the puck, etc. This is yet another reason why fighting is necessary
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