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Because the NBA is better run and the NHL is circling the bowl by comparison.
Hey, let's get all our stars hurt! yay! That will help our sport grow right?
I would love to see some enforcer on an NHL team learn how to really fight and put an arm lock on a guy and dislocate his elbow etc. Seriously, they've let guys smash other guys throats and heads with sticks and end peoples careers this way....I mean at what point do we just send them out there without goals or pucks and let them just fight?
The NHL is only 'circling the bowl' in markets non-hockey markets. You could try to put an NBA team in Calgary, but it would tank. However, hockey thrives there. Why is that?
And you ought to know, stick swinging is liable to get you banned from the league and facing criminal charges. It also has nothing to do with fighting - in fact fighting is a way to discourage bad behaviour on the ice.
In regards to stars getting hurt - that's part of the point of fighting. It's a way for players to police themselves and protect valuable players from cheap shots and harrassment.
As for the 'learn how to really fight' - learn to stand on skates, then attempt to grapple with someone. There's a reason hockey players fight like they do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GalileoSmith
I've played hockey and been a hockey fan for over 40 years. However I am a guy who has always had hockey as a secondary sport. Having laid that groundwork, there is fighting in the NHL because there is a tradition of it, as another poster said. However these days fighting has its problems. Helmets, an addition to the NHL after the advent of common fighting, creates problems. A punch to the helmet can do more damage to the hand than to the helmeted head being hit. Consequently some fighters take it easy when the helmet is likely to be hit. And visors, which might become manditory someday soon, will create yet more problems for the fighting hockey player.
To tell you the truth, I think they could ban fighting in the NHL and the sport could survive just fine. The heirarchy is probably unwilling to take the gamble. And given hockey is a secondary "major" sport in the US (but bigger than soccer, so far), it would be a gamble.
Your post brought back a childhood memory. I can recall seeing some fighters in the early helmet era starting fights by throwing open handed strikes to the forehead. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I finally realized the reason for this. It was to knock off the helmet, because hitting it with your knuckles really, really hurts.
The NHL is only 'circling the bowl' in markets non-hockey markets. You could try to put an NBA team in Calgary, but it would tank. However, hockey thrives there. Why is that?
And you ought to know, stick swinging is liable to get you banned from the league and facing criminal charges. It also has nothing to do with fighting - in fact fighting is a way to discourage bad behaviour on the ice.
In regards to stars getting hurt - that's part of the point of fighting. It's a way for players to police themselves and protect valuable players from cheap shots and harrassment.
As for the 'learn how to really fight' - learn to stand on skates, then attempt to grapple with someone. There's a reason hockey players fight like they do.
Your post brought back a childhood memory. I can recall seeing some fighters in the early helmet era starting fights by throwing open handed strikes to the forehead. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I finally realized the reason for this. It was to knock off the helmet, because hitting it with your knuckles really, really hurts.
Fact is most hockey players are small guys with limited fighting skills. Seriously, hire an MMA guy with limited skating ability and send him out there...wrap up and destroy the opposing teams better players.
Just beat the crap out of them, maybe dislocate a shoulder on their best player. Seriously, why ***** foot around the issue?
Fact is most hockey players are small guys with limited fighting skills. Seriously, hire an MMA guy with limited skating ability and send him out there...wrap up and destroy the opposing teams better players.
Just beat the crap out of them, maybe dislocate a shoulder on their best player. Seriously, why ***** foot around the issue?
I tried to explain this once already. You can't fight like that on ice because you'll just fall down. When you're on skates, you don't have the option of using leverage.
And - once you have people with feet off the ice, you're opening a whole other can of worms. I can recall a freak incident in which somebody got killed by an errant skate blade. Wasn't that you that was crying about stick swinging and violence earlier in this thread? So, which is it? Do you advocate stepping up the violence and abandoning safety or do you stand by your earlier post about the NHL being too violent?
As for them being small guys, well, you're wrong again. Steve MacIntyre (Oilers enforcer) is 6'5", 250 lbs. Derek Boogaard (can't recall who he plays for now) is 6'7", 265 lbs. By any standards, these are not small men.
Fact is most hockey players are small guys with limited fighting skills. Seriously, hire an MMA guy with limited skating ability and send him out there...wrap up and destroy the opposing teams better players.
Just beat the crap out of them, maybe dislocate a shoulder on their best player. Seriously, why ***** foot around the issue?
Fights are discouraged in the NBA because it is a lot more likely people will get hurt. Just look at Kermit Washington punching or getting punched by that guy (can't remember which), but a single blow ruined two players careers and ganked up one guy's eye for life. It was a freak thing, but it happens since you can go all out in an NBA fight whereas you can't go full strength in a hockey fight.
At the same time an NBA fight has a lot higher chance to spread into the stands since the fans are right there whereas in hockey you have a wall separating the players and the fans.
For what it is worth fighting in college hockey is treated like fighting in most other sports.
Fights are discouraged in the NBA because it is a lot more likely people will get hurt. Just look at Kermit Washington punching or getting punched by that guy (can't remember which), but a single blow ruined two players careers and ganked up one guy's eye for life. It was a freak thing, but it happens since you can go all out in an NBA fight whereas you can't go full strength in a hockey fight.
At the same time an NBA fight has a lot higher chance to spread into the stands since the fans are right there whereas in hockey you have a wall separating the players and the fans.
For what it is worth fighting in college hockey is treated like fighting in most other sports.
I'm still not sure where people get the idea that you can't fight full tilt on skates. Believe me, having fought the same individuals (4 brothers) on skates and off, they all hit just as hard on skates. Or ask Lou Fontinato what he thinks about it.
Regardless, I think you've touched on something that maybe wasn't your point, but I think is relevant nonetheless. And that is how ritualized and codified hockey fighting is. Players understand that there are some things that are taboo - things like jumping into another player's fight, not throwing a punch before both players are ready. Those sorts of things.
There's actually a book written about the code of conduct in fighting (The Code, by Ross Bernstein).
I don't watch much basketball, but from what I've seen, if a fight breaks out, it becomes almost bedlam on the court. I don't think it ever happens where two willing players will just drop away from the play and fight, and the others will not get involved. And in chaos like that, people do get hurt more often.
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Ever since Rudy T got almost killed on the court by Kermit Washington back in 1977, the NBA is extremely strict when it comes to not allowing fighting. Unlike most hockey players, most basketball players are big brutes who would do some super serious damage to other players, if they allowed fighting.
The simple answer would be that hockey is a contact sport, and basketball is (theoretically) not. When contact is allowed, there will always need to be some allowance for retaliation if contact is unwarranted, or bullies would have impunity. Most teams have a player designated as a policemen, to even the score if his teammate is roughed up.
Fighting has been significantly reduced in recent years. New rules allow a fight between to players two run its course, but there is a severe penalty for the third man into a fight. In the 60's, the penalty boxes were situated in such a way that fighing players could both be penalized, and then start duking it out again in the penalty box, sometimes with taunting spectators involved, and even chased up the aisles. I saw a junior game in Saskatoon in which there were so many brawls, it took nearly an hour to play the last two minutes.
Con Smythe, long time owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, was quoted as saying "If you can't win in the alleys, you can't win on the ice."
Ever since Rudy T got almost killed on the court by Kermit Washington back in 1977, the NBA is extremely strict when it comes to not allowing fighting. Unlike most hockey players, most basketball players are big brutes who would do some super serious damage to other players, if they allowed fighting.
Evidently, you didn't catch the Fedoruk/Boogaard fight from about 5 years ago.
Fedoruk challenged Boogaard (who is 6'7", 265 lbs). Boogaard one punched him and shattered his cheekbone. He ended up undergoing a bunch of facial reconstuctive surgery.
Same thing happened to Rick Dipietro a few years prior (though I don't recall who did it).
I think the Kermit Washington incident really make the point I wanted to make about fighting being ritualized in hockey. Tomjanovich got hit when he was not expecting to fight, and while trying to intervene in a fight between two others.
Were that incident to have taken place in hockey, Washington and Kunnert would have been left alone to fight (then broken up by linesman). Tomjanovich wouldn't have been in the vicinity.
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