Fighting in hockey

Jesus Christ it is not even remotely the same. Your comparisons are ridiculous.

 

It was a completely political move by the Montreal police. We get it, you don't like hockey, you don't understand it which is fine.

 

This couldn't be further from the truth. I really enjoy hockey, you know, the scoring, the stick handling, even clean, legal, open-ice hits. I have no problem with that. My only point with this entire thread was what does fighting do to further the game? To me, it's a waste of time, considering you rarely see them in the playoffs.

 

Keep taking that high road JC. Go jerk off to your Todd Bertuzzi poster.

 

Which is completely due to the level of importance that the playoffs are. There are plenty of games over an 82 game schedule that don't take on any importance.

 

Your an idiot, nice response moron. My Todd Bertuzzi poster, what are you 12?

I take it back, it is obvious you have never played.

Comparing fighting in basketball to hockey is as dumb as it comes around here.

 

OK, so let me ask you this: Assuming it gets through September unscathed, and the NHL eventually phases out fighting from the game, how much will it affect the fans? Obviously some fans go for the fights, but how strong is the sport minus one of the biggest draws?

 

Here are the statistics some of you you asked for, FWIW.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/8346779-418/are-hockey-fights-vicious-or-good-release-valve.html

Hockey fighting is a fairly low-concussion risk activity. It's obviously got some risk, but not nearly as much as fighting on solid ground or even a "clean" hockey check.

You can't compare NHL to the Olympics because of the general talent level involved (and that's before we get to the surface difference, which in Europe leads to a more wide-open skating game with less contact in general). If you had only the top 150 players in the world in the NHL, you'd likely have a more skill heavy game to begin with with exponentially fewer guys who feel like they have to make a big hit on a superstar to stay at that level since physicality is all they bring to the table, and you'd have less fighting. But the NHL has 700 players of varying skill level, and there are a ton of those guys who feel the need to make borderline plays to stay in the league.

I guess I compare spur-of-the-moment fighting to a pitcher intentionally throwing at a batter in baseball. A lot of time, it's stupid and it's potentially dangerous, though much less so than one might initially suspect. But it has a point, if sometimes a stupid macho-man one, and a long history in the game with reasons that make sense to those who know enough about it.

 

The NHL would be fine. You'd see a lot more impact at the lower levels, like the ECHL, where fighting is a much bigger part of the marketing. The NHL it's something exciting for many fans but not among the biggest draws.

 

I don't know anybody that buys tickets for the fighting.

If the outlaw fighting and the game changes the way I think it will, I think that could affect fans down the road.

 

Smash beat me to it, but here's another article that says hockey is a cleaner game when the gloves come off.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/hockey-a-cleaner-game-when-gloves-come-off-123111

From the article: But only 6 percent of the 260 concussions recorded between October 2006 and January 2010 resulted from fight.

 

Scouts??