Men Who Love Goons...

I see that logic -- so two guys fighting in hockey "is different" because it is treated as a minor infraction as opposed to in basketball and football where it is treated as a major infraction.......

Makes sense to me......

 

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Please quote specific examples.

If you can't, please don't post inane generalizations.

 

When I hear a commentator on television, a big hockey apologist, saying he does not watch the NBA because it has become "thug basketball" and two sentences later talk about some "tough guy" fighter in hockey, I'm sorry there is more at work there with him and many others just like him than just "he understads the culture of the sport...."

And unfortunately there are far too many in the media who feel the same way. Go back and take a look at how the fight between the Pacers and Pistons was handled -- beyond the fact that fans were involved -- and treated and the language people used to describe the "hip hop culture" and "prison culture" that precipated it.

Why is it when basketball players fight it is a product of their upbringing and the enviroment they lived in (as opposed to they are competitors who lost their cool)?

Why do we not have to hear about hockey players learning to fight through prison culture and rap and hip hop culture?

Again -- ask yourself -- what is different about the average hockey player and the average NBA or NFL player?

 

If NBA players fought with their fists.... their own fists, not someone in their posse's, and not with a gun....

Besides, is Brashears not black?

 

Zag....you don't hear about hockey players learning to fight through "prison culture" or the "hip hop culture" because they learn to fight in Junior hockey, playing the game, because it's within the rules of the sport. That is why people don't get worked up over seeing a fight in hockey (except for you).....it's part of the game.

 

Here is a great piece on this very subject and he is absolutely correct -- ESPN treats fights in hockey much differently than they treat fights in football and basketball.

And you -- much like the people on Fox News who have spent a month trying to rationalize why Obama can't get votes in rural Pa., W.Va. and Kentucky -- can continue to try and tap dance around reasons why but if you don't believe racism -- either blatant or latent -- is a major part of it than you are kidding yourselves.

http://www.bomanijones.com/blog/2008/03/26/sports-fights-in-black-and-white/


Another piece with even more examples.........

http://samcassellisanalienandilovehim.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/same-old-song-and-dance/

I know, I know -- it is all straw men stuff......

 

There are NO fights in the NBA and NFL. So, what on earth are you talking about?

Only baseball and hockey go at it with any regularity.

Now, after the games, yeah, those sports get REAL dangerous.

 

That might be the dumbest thing I have read -- If it is within the rules of the sport -- why is there a penalty for it?

Is high sticking within the rules of the sport?

Is cross checking within the rules of the sport?

Is pass interference within the rules of football or are you penalized for it?

Look I can understand why you are all so defensive on this topic, but I'm not accusing any individual of being a racist -- though there are some who I clearly think are --

I'm simply saying there is a whole lot of racism and stereotyping when it comes to perceptions of fighting in sports and it seems to me that while we "celebrate" fights in sports like hockey and even baseball (two sports with generally very low percentage of African-Americans) with highlights, DVD's, nicknames -- we condemn it in the two "hip hop" sports and make it out to be some sort of a statement on the problems of society at large.

And I don't think that is a point that -- if you've been paying attention to the media and you take of your hockey fan boy glasses for a minute -- you could make a reasonable argument that is wrong.

And to be clear -- I don't think all hockey fans are racists.

I think there are some are some very racist perceptions and it is shaped by the media -- which is overwhelmingly middle-aged and white -- about fighting in sports

 

Fighting in hockey is part of the game, like it or not.

What ESPN & all the other American networks show (when they show hockey at all) has nothing to do with fighting in hockey: specifically, the Bertuzzi incident and the Jonathan Roy mugging in the Quebec Major Junior league.

Those last two incidents were branded as thuggery, plain and simple

The Palace incident wasn't a fight. It was thuggery.

Same thing. Different sport.

 

One part of this debate that puzzles me...

Does the NBA have the same level of LEGAL physical play that the NHL has? Do you routinely see NBA players bodychecking opponents into the stands? The physical level of play is so vastly different between the two sports, this kind of argument is difficult to fathom. It really is an apples and oranges comparison.

Now...the NFL and NHL, in terms of physicality? They're much closer but the level of fighting between the two is vastly different. That's a debate I'd rather see.

 

That's hilarious. Fights in baseball? Lot of bitch-slapping but that's about it.

 

Hockey is faster. Hockey is more physical. Hockey players carry big sticks.

Hockey is as violent as football but hockey players have a game every other day.