Men Who Love Goons...

Not a shot at anyone who liked the piece, but it really did nothing for me. Different strokes.

 

The Probert-Domi stuff on YouTube is classic.

 

Same here.... just too damn long with no payoff.

 

Isn't it amazing --- when hockey players fight they are "man's men", tough guys, gritty, hard-nosed and playing a tough sport and the fights are celebrated highlights on the nightly news and Sportscenter --- when NBA players fight they are "thugs" and "gangsters" and the highlights of the fight lead sportscenter for five days in a row and are greeted with horror and devastation and we are told they represent the worst elements of society and sports.........

And people wonder why there are still places in this country Obama has no prayer of getting votes?

This is racism plain and simple.

 

I understand your point, Zag, and on the surface it seems compelling. But less so if you consider the history and fan culture of the sports.

Fighting has ALWAYS been an integral part of the North American hockey culture, something its fans expected almost as if a natural part of the game. Whereas in other sports brawling was viewed as an aberration when things go wrong. Hockey fans had a different view toward brawling than basketball fans even back when the NBA was almost completely white, it's not something that changed because the league turned more black.

I think this inherent fan culture probably explains the different attitude toward brawling more than race. Although I don't doubt race has something to do with it.

 

Thank you, Stoney.

This is the problem with far too many accusations of racism in our society. Some people are so quick to blame race that they don't bother to look at the other factors involved. In this case, Zag, i think you missed the most important factor -- the traditions of the two sports.

I think there are other factors as well. Hockey, by nature, is more physical than basketball. The rules allow for more legal contact. More importantly, hockey players carry objects that can be used as weapons onto the ice. They can do a tremendous amount of damage with their sticks. Due to the combination of these factors, hockey lends itself more to violence than basketball does.

 

I agree....too damn long. But, hockey needs all the ink it can get, so I was pleased to see a feature piece on espns main page.

 

That's a bunch of hogwash and you know it.

Don't tell me a bunch of middle-aged white hacks born and raised in the United States of America can excuse the hockey culture because they grew up with it.

Further -- football is more violent than hockey could ever be and guess what -- when Miami and FIU gets into a fight -- we have to hear about gangsters, thugs, prison cultures, hip hop and everything else (it isn't just competitors losing their cool)......

All of those words are loaded and you know damn well that it is racism on the parts of broadcasters and fans within our society, pure and simple.

I'm not saying everyone who watches or likes hockey -- hell I like hockey and watch it often -- is a racist -- I'm saying the way with which fights in hockey and football and basketball (and frankly if you watch baseball fights, they are celebrated and treated much differently than fights in the two sports with the most African-Americans and the most Hip Hop culture surrounding them) are viewed and treated, particularly by most of the media, is racist, pure and simple.

When two hockey players fight, it is not treated as statement about white culture or white society -- when two basketball players fight it becomes a discussion of the state of black America.

That is flat out racism.

 

Since when did zagoshe become the one who measures that which is racist, and that which isn't?

I have truly hopped down the rabbit hole.

 

Yeah, I am such a racist I have been tirelessly pointing out how racism is probably going to cost Obama the presidency and ripping the Clinton's for playing to the worst kinds of racism and racist tendencies with some of the stuff they and their minions have "floated" out there about muslims, pastors and islamic terrorists and I have said that even though idealogically Obama is on the opposite side of just about every argument from me -- I thnk it would be good if he were elected because it force a whole lot of people to get over their irrational fears of black folks and what they might do to white folks.

An Obama presidency I'm quite sure is just what America needs to heal some of the racial divide that is queitly destroying this country

 

Hi all,

I wrote the piece. May as well out myself. Thanks to everyone who bothered to read it, and double thanks for bothering to discuss it here. It's really gratifying to see your peers appreciate your work, and in a different way, also gratifying to seem them criticize it. So again: my appreciation.

As for the race n' fighting n' the NBA vis-a-vis the NHL thing, just wanted to add a few thoughts, since it's something I turned over and talked to people about, but didn't make part of my piece.

-- The difference in fan/public/media reaction to NBA brawling and NHL brawling is absolutely rooted in the different cultures of the two sports ... I mean, hockey fighting is basically institutionalized, tacitly and explicitly accepted -- as an organic outgrowth of hockey's speed and violence, as a legitimate strategic and tactical tool, as a selling point to fans, etc. Been that way forever, too - I think there's an old Conn Smythe quote about "we better curb fighting, otherwise people are gonna keep buying tickets." In the NBA, on the other hand, the era of guys playing in actual cages is long, long past. You probably have to go back to the ABA to see anything similar to a hockey enforcer (and more recently, I don't think a guy like Charles Oakley counts). So the cultural context here -- one independent of race -- is pretty important.

-- Ted Leonsis brought up a small but key point in our discussion -- namely, that hockey fans are protected by the glass, while basketball fans are not. So the possibility of violence spilling over into the stands is, practically speaking, much greater in basketball than hockey. This isn't to say that hockey players have never gone after fans, or that basketball players always do ... more that something like the brawl at the Palace is less likely to happen in hockey. Unless a drunk guy falls into the box holding Tie Domi, in which case, he probably deserves what's coming to him. I kid. Anyway, the point is that at a basic physical unthinking level, a hockey fan probably feels safer when it comes to a player fight.

-- The NHL garners much less attention and interest than the NBA, so I think it's fair to say that something like the Palace brawl is naturally going to have longer, greater news cycle impact than even, say, the Bertuzzi incident (which, incidentially, involved a declined fight, and not actual fisticuffs). To put it another way: If an earthquake in the US kills 1,000 people, it's going to prompt much more media coverage and public discussion here than the recent China quake, even though the China quake was bigger and more devestating.

-- (Also, I think the above points out the logic corner you can paint yourself into when you ascribe varying reactions to hockey and basketball fighting to straight, unqualifed racism: white fans decry NBA fighting because the league is dominated by black athletes who scare them on the basis of skin color, but those same white fans turn off their racism and devote way more time and money to the NBA than to the mostly-white NHL? Um, which one is it?)

-- Similarly, the top two NHL heavyweights are Georges Larque and Donald Brashear, and yet white America manages to sleep at night.

-- All of that said, I'm not going to argue -- or even suggest -- that racial prejudice doesn't shape perceptions of the NBA, or NBA fights, or especially the whole Palace brawl media clusterf--k. Prejudice of all sorts shapes perceptions of all kinds, by definition. I just don't think declaring a double standard between the NBA and the NHL based on race, "pure and simple" is very well thought out. It's too reductive.

Just my two cents.

PS -- If my ESPN inbox is any indication, plenty of white people get plenty bent out of shape about hockey fighting as well. Something else to keep in mind.

PPS -- Is anything in this world actually pure and simple? Not trying to be snide here, or sound like Billy Idol in White Wedding Pts. I and II, or take away from that fact that we all use terms like 'pure and simple' to make arguments work in the space of 800 words. But still.