Fighting in hockey

Because you don't sound like good or educated enough of a hockey fan to be given one.
No offense.
Hockey fans are tired of breaking this down into itty bitty baby pieces for non-fans.

 

I played my first organized hockey game in 1963. I played my last in 2009.

Explain the game to me.

 

And an answer like that is the kind of separatist bullshit that keeps hockey fans down in number. You NEED to explain it to laymen. It's not your special little club.

 

And did you ever fight?
Did you ever want to fight?

 

You need to explain it to some rigid 'fan' that something is part of a game chromosomally? That it is institutional?
Oh, no. That time has passed.

 

I think some of the answers still apply. I would hate to see fighting eliminated from the game, but I would like to see the player that provides nothing but his fist eliminated from the game.

 

Fighting is already almost entirely gone from the European game and the college game and I don't miss it there. In fact I prefer those versions of hockey. North American professional hockey could end fighting in a single season if it chose to, but fighting persists because North American professional hockey thinks fighting sells tickets and DVDs. And it sort of does - but to the same small, static audience. The game traps itself in a retrograde feedback loop of its own ridiculous traditions. This is a sport after all that didn't require helmets in its premier league until 1979.

Turns out Don Cherry isn't hockey's soul, he's the game's reptile brainstem.

And things won't change while that kind of thinking steers the game.

 

Of course you could rid of it, which would be a detriment to the game IMO. I hate the European game, I like physical hockey and I really believe if you take fighting out of the game the stick work will become a lot worse. Th biggest misnomer about European hockey is how wide open it is, it isn't. They trap more than teams in the NHL.

To each their own, if you prefer a game with fighting banned who is anybody to argue with what someone likes but banning fighting is not going to magically bring in new fans, it just isn't.

 

I think a very physical version of the game without fighting - like that played in the WCHA, i.e. - would keep the old audience, but would also bring in a few new people as well.

Trouble is, we'll never know until someone decides to try.

 

Please don't presume to speak for all hockey fans.

And like Azrael I played my first hockey game in about 1960 and my last in about 2000.

I'm not as adamant as he is about fighting, but its place in the game is tremendously overvalued. And it doesn't help that the league and dinosaur owners like Ed Snyder don't want to anything about removing it

 

JC, you and I agree on a lot of things but I'm not with you on this.

The old "stickwork will go up" argument is old, tired and unproven. Stickwork used to be a lot worse than it is now--I mean, guys like Rocket Richard used to use their sticks as hatchets.

And if you remove fighting, it doesn't follow that you remove the physicality.

Look at the OHL: they were the first league to ban head shots and there hasn't been any reduction in hitting and checking.

The problem with fighting now is that there is no penalty. Sure, two guys go to the box but the five minutes in there equals about two games worth of ice time.

And JC, the Europeans invented the trap as we know it.

 

We do normally agree but we will agree to disagree on this. I have also played along time and played junior when it was filthy as ever and truly believe that fighting keeps people somewhat honest.

Oh I know they invented the trap, that is why I find it amusing when people talk about the beauty of the European game