And that Belak/Janssen fight was straight gold. I miss Wade.

If there’s no fighting, Janssen gets away with that dirty, pathetic hit on Kaberle.

It’s a tough, tough debate. But I’m still leaning towards fighting being allowed in the game.

Because I’m lazy, I’ll cross-post the comment I just left at Steve D’s site…

People who defend driving in cars need to stop acting like they think every accident is a huge tragedy. If you really thought that, you’d ban it.

Sorry… just trying to illustrate how simplistic this line of argument is.

I think we’re going to see an NHL player die on the ice sometime in the next decade — not from a fight or a hit, but from a slapshot to the temple, chest or throat. We’ve already come close a few times, much closer than we have in a fight. Does that make me a caveman if I don’t advocate banning slapshots?

There may be good reasons to eliminate (or at least reduce) fighting. But acknowledging the very, very small risk of a tragedy doesn’t just end the discussion.

I’m on the record as being pro-fighting, although I think there are decent arguments to be made for reducing it, or at least finding a way to make it safer. But I have to say, there are a ton of really bad arguments out there. Maybe I took a few too many logic courses in school but this kind of stuff bugs me.

This article, and all the comments thus far, is the reason this site is and this community is so top-notch. Excellent thought piece, excellent discussion. It’s mindnumbing to me that the print media fail so miserably at writing such well thought out pieces like this. And the comments by eyebleaf, Jared, DGB are always right there to stimulate more conversation and add more layers to the discussion. Great work as always fellas.

How many anti-fighting people, who want to get rid of it because of the inherent danger involved, don’t wear seatbelts while they drive? Or engaged in other risky behaviours like sky-diving, bungee-jumping, drug use etc. I personally believe in the ability to make a decision as an adult.

And I’ll put it here just to get more people to read it:

It’s not the fighting persay, it’s the ice. It’s too hard. I propose we remove the ice, and instead play the game on one of those blowup air mattress thingys that little kids bounce on at fairs. That way, players can remove their helmets (an added bonus of returning to the "true roots" of hockey where you can see the player and their hair) which I’m sure Rosenbloom would appreciate, and would also allow for the removal of skates and those pesky dangerous blades. That way, we wouldn’t have anymore Barrasso/Zednik incidents.

Without ice, the arena would be warmer, or we could actually play outdoors easily, and in the summer too! This would increase popularity in the US no doubt.

I’ve just improved the safety of hockey about 500%, while improving the US marketplace. And the only downfall is that stickhandling will now be harder. I think I should be the new commissioner.

although I disagree with your position. And I would like to point out that supporters of fighting are, sooner or later, going to have to come up with a more recent example than Iginla v. Lecavalier. One great playoff fight in five seasons isn’t worth all the rest of the crap.

I can only speak for myself, but I’m almost never excited when a fight breaks out. Mostly I’m bored – and I have no stats to back this up, but one reason it’s boring is that it almost always seems to be one goon against another, they throw a few punches that mostly miss and then clinch until the linesmen step in. Fighting largely disappears in the playoffs because these guys stop getting ice time. I’m also becoming very annoyed with the recent need by sports networks (and CBC) to provide me with a loud play-by-play of each punch and then fill up the highlight reels with these meaningless displays. And they feel some obligation to call out who the winner is even if only one or two punches actually connect.

Thankfully since Domi and Belak left town these are much less frequent during Leafs games (I’m still mystified by the presence of Hollweg but if he’s here to be a goon he’s a massive failure).

I don’t believe it cleans up the game. The teams with the most goons, in the 70’s (Cherry’s favourite era), were the most violent teams of all time. Semenko was perceived as a need on Gretzky’s line for a while, but around 1984 (IIRC) they realized that if they put another hockey player on that line they’d score even more often. Gretzky was a special case; he rarely went into traffic and rarely sticked anyone (yeah, I know, 1993) and no-one (until Suter) wanted to be known as the guy who wrecked his career with a wide-open cheap shot.

And it’s most often the goons who are committing the real dirty deeds. I had respect for Domi until the Neidermeyer elbow. Most of the rest are committed by jackasses like Hollweg or Ott running around, but as PPP admits, fighting isn’t making them accountable. Years ago, Neidermeyer was suspended for high-sticking Peter Worrell; but Worrell had been flying around throwing elbows and headshots at everyone in sight. Do you think he would have stopped if he’d had to fight someone? Fighting was his job.

Vengeance fights like Belak v. Janssen don’t interest me either. Janssen is a goon – he’s not scared of a fight – and the ritualistic nature of it was (to me) repulsive). We all expected May to go after the Canadiens, but if fighting were ‘banned’ and it was no longer expected, would we miss it?

Safety-wise, I am sympathetic to the point that fighters are better than they used to be. Boxers wear gloves not just to protect their own hands, and amateur boxers wear head protectors as well. Hockey players are bigger and stronger but their skulls (Domi excepted) aren’t any thicker. Bareknuckle fighting by trained fighters is dangerous, and moreso than it used to be.

Finally, PPP makes the case that fighting is an NHL-specific part of hockey. However, the NHL is the leader. If there were no fighting in the NHL there wouldn’t be any in junior; and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that half the junior fights are guys trying to make an impression on scouts (I remember Ryan Vandenbussche eeking out a career after jumping Owen Nolan in the OHL).

Do I want to ‘ban’ fighting? I want to take it seriously and stick a game misconduct on it, maybe a cumulative one. What I’d really like is “players” like Chris Neil out of the game and replaced by some guys with actual skill; and if I have to sacrifice the rare ‘entertaining’ fight to do it, so be it.

Well lucky for us, we now know!

Among my favourite parts? Talking about using your stick as a weapon, hitting others first before they hit you, and how there was a Code, all in the same article condemning today’s fights because the fighter’s today are only in the NHL cause they can fight. Not like the old days, when there were only 6 teams and 120 jobs to fill!

One type of fighting that hasn’t been mentioned here, and one that I’d like to see dealt with more harshly, is the ever increasing popularity of the fight after a good clean hit.

If ever there was a place for the instigator penalty to be applied, this is it. Toss a few of these guys from the game and we’ll see if those great open ice hits really have to be followed up by a goofy wrestling match/fight…

Great post and counterpoints to all. I myself sit on the fence on this issue now. Admittedly, my once fervent “you can never ban fighting in hockey” has wavered in recent years. But I think something needs to be said of how hits and fighting are being taught and mimicked right now. I believe Bobby Orr has talked about this at length and much better than I ever could, but the emphasis on the “kill” shot is a troubling sign to me.

Football has always been considered one of the most dangerous sports because of the glorification and excitement that a thundering tackle brings to the sport. While the point of the defender is to stop the opponents from advancing, the best way to do this is to “temporarily” debilitate your opponents by punishing them so hard they don’t get up. Thus, they completely stop their opponent’s momentum and provide a reminder the consequences of running that same play. This is the “kill” shot.

Hockey isn’t immune to this mentality any more so than football in my mind. Hockey hits are increasingly going up towards the head area, and fighting has seen its share of the vaunted uppercut. All of these moves are designated to cause the maximum impact of damage. A blow underneath the chin is very susceptible to concussions, especially when the head gets knocked back in the form of whiplash. Furthermore, these are actions that directly circumvent whatever “respect” or “code” that goes with fighting in the heat of the moment. Trying to KO your fighting partner is not about putting aside differences and letting out your anger. It is a deliberate way to hurt someone and hurt them badly.

If protecting hockey players is of utmost importance, than I do believe fighting has to be curtailed. I can’t simply brush away the dangers that fighting brings nowadays when players are learning and bringing in other ways from other sports to maximize harm. If headshots are known to be the most dangerous types of blows to a person, never mind a hockey player, then why continue to leave fighting where it’s virtually blow by blow to the head unabated?

Bringing in rules, such as keeping helmets on during fights, to reduce fighting are a start. But again, I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear more concussions and other head related injuries in the OHL because the uppercut or punches to the unexposed part of the head are the only kind that survive and allowed. Since you can’t even fathom a guess as to what types of action are designed to take the other player out nor is it a guarantee that teaching players not to uppercut/hit “upwards” will eliminate these head shots, I do believe the league has to do the proactive thing and seriously start reducing fighting in general.

Wow, I didn’t realize you were going to demolish that really solid post. I guess I should expect it at this point.