Hockey and Fighting ??
 

Now I am not a fan of Hockey by any means but what I don't understand is why is fighting legal??

This just doesn't make sense to me. I know it's legal until it goes to the ground, but that seems very barbaric and not needed. The game has rules and if a rule is broken (like a guy hitting someone with the stick) and a fight breaks out, that is understandable, but what the hell is the reason for fighting being legal?

The NFL might as well let the football players go at it, hell why not have B Ball throwdowns, I would love to see Shack vs Kobe lol.

I'm not a hockey expert. But i've been a fan for many years, especially after the LA Kings with the "Great One" made it to the Finals in 93.

But there is a long-standing tradition of fighting in hockey. Fighting offers the players to police themselves. If an opposing player throws a dirty body check on your best player, that may be grounds for a fight. In the playoffs, it is unlikely to see teams fight, usually only in the 1st game. Also, fighting on ice offers only arm punches, to balance and cause a season ending injury is unlikely. Remember they have fiberglass sticks, better two guys slug it out for a few seconds than whack each others heads off. I am sure there are a lot of other valid reasons why NHL allows fighting, but as I regress I have never seen a hockey fight in Olympic play. But the ice surface is bigger and you usually only play a team once or twice.


Like in a lot of sports, intimidation is a big part of it.
NBA is a bunch of primadonnas, always wanting a foul. I used to like basketball. They don't fight, they flagrant foul and chance ending careers, or a teams hope for championship. ala Horry's forearm shiver on Nash. Now thats ugly.

The NFL is a whole different creature. The game is founded on being physical, it doesnt take a fight to hurt someone.

I may be wrong but thats the way I see it, I'm open to discussion/persuasion.

If NFL players had sticks I'm sure fights would break out. Stick swinging is much worse than fighting. If you take fighting out of hockey you're going to see a lot of stick work. If you watch European hockey or even College hockey, there's a lot of stick work.

The reason there's no fighting in Olympic Hockey is it's governed by IIHF which has a no fighting rule, but you also have the best plyaers in the world playing in the Olympics so why would they fight?

I play lacrosse which allows fighting, and its much better than swinging for a guys head with a stick.

How is is barbaric? We are all (or at least we should be) mma fans and Harlem, I know you're a big boxing fan, so how is this barbaric?

When fighters fight, it's over, they act like men and get on with it. It settles issues. It lets player know that they were out of line or if they have something against each other, they can fight each other. Fighting each other is a much better alternative than, throwing a baseball at another guy's head and have the dugouts cleared and all of them act like a bunch of bitchy women. It's better than a player sttomping their cleets on a downed opponent. It's better than racecar drivers trying to make his fellow driver crash and possibly kill him.

Harlem, I don't know if you meant to insult Hockey and its tradition, but if you're not a fan, then try to understand it, before calling it barbaric.

Honestly, I don't understand it much. I'm not trying to bash it, and didn't say anything disrespectful, but I didn't understand the need for fighting. As someone else has said though, if it keeps people from swinging for the fences with a stick at someones head I guess it's the better of both evils.

I personally would rather someone not take a swing at me for checking them too hard as I would find it very hard to forgive and wouldnt want to stop until I got a really good hit in any way possible so they understand not to ever do it again.

I just think a sport should be more about the skill and fighting is not sportsmanship. Unless it's prize fighting.

I hear ya Harlem.

But I disagree with your last comment.

"I just think a sport should be more about the skill and fighting is not sportsmanship."

There is a lot of skill, and even after a hockey fight there is sportsmanship. Its not like the big enforcer guy is fighting one of the weaker players on the opposing team. They jaw-jack, square off, drop the gloves, and in some cases even take off their helmets as to not injure their fists, a mutual sign of respect, then go at it.

I also want to add in that hockey is not as dirty as many other sports. When someone hits someone on the haed with a stick (Mcsorely hitting Brashear), it's not tolerated, the player gets suspended. If a player sucker punches another player from behind (Bertuzzi on Steve Moore), then that is not tolerated either and they will be suspended and cats with a dark shadow for the rest of their careers.

It's not like a player gets in a fight everytime he checks someone. If a player who got checked and starts a fight, then that player will instantly get 2 extra penalty minutes and possibly more. Hockey players have a lot of pride and almost always will not fight a guy much smaller than themselves because it makes them look like pussies. Trust me, if you watched it regularly, you'd see a pattern of why they fight and that there is reason for it.

here's my input on NHL and fighting.

playing ice hockey is not easy, and the competition is intense. why do most hockey games end up with only 1 or 2 goals scored. it's not easy to win, and when checking gets out of hand, a fight results. it's part of the game. if the same player checked me numerous times, i would definitley drop the gloves and fight.

Intimidation is a big part of the game. NHL teams often take guys for one purpose and that is to protect star players on there team. I pray to god that they dont remove fighting from hockey becuase alot of players are only in the NHL becuase of how tough they are, as opposed to their skill