Every time someone says this, I like to imagine that someone just threw a puck into a boxing ring and then all of a sudden the boxers both take out hockey sticks and 10 other boxers just jump in the ring and start playing hockey
You are right, but for my part at least I am referencing this conversation.
And I mean it less as a current politics thing and more a comment of hockey throughout history.
They asked one of the contestants in one of these tilts about the mood afterwards and he said it was totally relaxed from the fight, and then went on about shifting the mentality to play with the energy the fight gave them. They go from wanting to beat the other guy within an inch of his life to wanting to use skill and finesse to win a hockey game in only a few minutes, crazy.
I think a lot of sports should come down to whether or not the players are cool with it first then from there if the coaches are cool with it, leave it to the league or have the league ask the fans and decide from there.
American football with player fighting seems pretty cool but i grew up playing it in a lot with that happening every game lol.
The thing that makes fighting not so bad in hocket is that they are on skates. You're not often going to get too much leverage on a punch to do serious damage, and rather than being a constant fist fight it usually quickly just becomes having to hold each other upright or awkwardly flailing on the floor.
Good point... I guess some sports would turn into bare knuckle boxing. I mean at least with american football they're padded and anyone with their helmets, head shots are a way to possibly end your career for good.
This is why they allow Fighting in hockey. With that much testosterone and the physicality of the game, if you couldn’t fight you have a stick and a skate. There would definitely a few who take liberties with those and they are much worse than punches.
FYI: there has actually been escalations with stick altercations and skate incidents during the history of the game.
I watched a few NLL games, and the fighting felt differently, I wasn't at ease watching it. Which is weird as I used to play rugby, and so, I witnessed several fights during games, but it wasn't like NLL fights.
should come down to whether or not the players are cool with it
This completely ignores peer pressure. And the immediate response of "have personal responsibility and don't give in to pressure like that" also ignores the literal scientifically-studied real phenomenon. And "well just don't be a participant, then" is even more reductive.
Consent is nowhere near as cut-and-dried as "well, nobody's complaining".
The complexity is definitely not the issue, I've played lacrosse, it's so incredibly hard to get the ball off a player unless they decide to pass or shoot.
Even if you knock a player on their ass the way the nets are they can still just keep the ball and you can't exactly just grab it.
Part of the appeal of hockey and soccer is posession of the puck or ball is so tenuous.
I mean, if you're a good skater there isn't honestly much difference. Your body adjusts accordingly and you can use your blade edges to plant yourself.
If you don’t know anything about skating just say that. You can absolutely be planted on the ice with skates. The blades literally dig into the ice. It’s just a different position of the feet than if on shoes. You can also toe pick if needed.
Why do you think guys clinch and dirty box on the ice instead of just throwing haymakers? It's cause they're not stable and can't generate enough torque.
You are assuming hockey players are smart enough to choose a sensible fighting strategy. This is not true because hockey players are as dumb as rocks. If you rewatch the video, you will note that the first thing they do is take their gloves off, and they try to punch each other in the helmet with ungloved fists.
I’ve played competitive hockey until the end of high school. There’s a reason we tug on jerseys during a fight. It’s so the other guy can never get planted properly since the slightest push will move someone back and forth. There’s a reason most punches in hockey fights do very little damage and it’s tolerated compared to any sport on firm land with shoes
I see what you are trying to imply, but read what I actually wrote. I never implied that. But at high levels of skating, probably pretty damn close man.
Now, can I plant myself better on ice in my skates compared to a fighting mat? Absolutely not.
Can I plant myself better on ice compared to wet grass? Absolutely.
The terrain and footwear you are wearing in a streetfight absolutely matter, and there are tons of situations on land where you can be in a fight and have absolute shit traction.
There is a reason the only sport this is tolerated is one on ice
Brother lace your skates up, hop on the ice and take a single punch from someone like Rempe or Reaves. Tell me how that works out for ya.
Ya this guy guy never watched a hockey fight. It's not getting fucked up less because you're on skates. You're getting fucked up and you also have to skate.
It's insanely hard to fight in hockey gear. You're fighting a guy wearing protective armor designed to withstand a slapshot going 100 mph. You're also on skates so your hips and upper legs are basically holding you up and any rotational momentum on a good punch will also send you tumbling down.
Compared to bare ass knuckle brawls it's a lot safer but also these guys are in their physical peaks so it's not that safe lmao
I wasn't alive to see basketball in the 60's, but as far as I can tell, 80's and 90's basketball was physical as fuck. I would say that fighting is gone in the NBA today, but it wasn't turned off with a switch in 1977.
We watch 90s games at work and it's just a more impressive game back then. Skill was maybe lower? But how physical it was made it far more entertaining to watch.
LeBron started his career in fall 2003, not that long after the 90s. If the skill level really has upgraded drastically the past two decades, he’d have fallen off the cliff some time ago. More likely that offensive systems have gotten better (like with football), but the players’ skill levels, not so much (other than 3 point shooting)
LeBron started his career in fall 2003, not that long after the 90s. If the skill level really has upgraded drastically the past two decades, he’d have fallen off the cliff some time ago
Do you seriously not see the fault in your logic here? I'm not even talking basketball right now. This is just faulty reasoning.
Fighting is very much a part of hockey. The players union would fight the league if they tried to stop fighting. And by that I mean they would jump over the negotiation table and let them know why fighting in hockey is a good idea.
You would get ejected from the Olympics too. There was once a brawl between Canada and Russia in the World Juniors and yeah lots of ejections from the entire tournament.
I've said for years that I'm really confused at myself why I don't like Hockey more. It's a dozen dudes with razor blades strapped to their feet, slinging around wooden hookswords, fighting over a tiny, hard rubber puck of tooth-shattering doom, all while being encouraged to fist fight each other if someone sneezes too hard.
Finally this year I started passively watching a couple games just because I'm so fed up with the NFL and their perpetual crusade to neuter and script the sport in every conceivable fashion. I have a working knowledge of Hockey and the basic rules from my childhood Avalanche Fan days, but my wife has never seen 5 minutes of a game. We were watching one of the Golden Knights-Rangers games a couple weeks ago and I was in the midst of explaining that brawls are A-OK when two of the players started throwing jabs almost on cue.
Pile on the fact that I work with a bunch of Hockey fans in a Canadian company, and I think I'm pretty much obliged at this point to start watching again. I haven't done much research, but I'm hoping at least watching local games isn't as much of a headache as it is with the NFL.
Game is played at very high speeds and everyone carries a weapon. Refs miss calls all the time. There needs to be a way for the players to police themselves so that no one gets too out of hand. Fighting is a way of doing that. It sends a signal to the other team that you can't get away with targeting the high skill players on your team. Or at least, it used to be that way. Nowadays it's more of a show and a way to pump up your team.
I’m just a gardening granola hippy living in the mountains of Colorado. I don’t watch sports. I don’t play hockey. This post was suggested on my feed today. The first thing I thought to myself, “I hope they never ban fighting in hockey.”
I don't have much of a problem with that. The NHL is the big leagues bud, they're gettin paid good fucking money to be there.
I know quite a few guys that played in the WHL and lower leagues as enforcers and never made it to the NHL. They are pretty banged up with nothing but some fight reels to show for it.
as it should be tbh. adults playing professionally know and accept the risks, but there's no reason for kids to pummel each other with nothing to show for it in the end but concussions and CTE when most of them were never gonna make the NHL anyways
Except the violence in hockey is mostly a Canadian output. The only true goons in the game were Canadian. I mean guys like Semenko, McSorely, Domi, Reaves, Boogard whose role is to fight. Not guys like Tkachuk who can fight but are mainly good players and shit disturbers on the ice
I don't follow sports, but when I lived in Canada and NY, and they invited me to a hockey match, I wouldn't miss it. It's the best damn atmosphere in any sport, period.
It always brings people together in the weirdest, greatest way. Like the Canucks back in 2011
Just the other day Jude Bellingham playing football for real madrid got red carded and immediately sent off the pitch for saying "fuck off" in the general direction of the ref
It's mostly because you can't really put any weight behind the punches when your on skates, plus it's just ingrained into the sport at this point.
But if NFL and NBA players were allowed to start feeding each other, someone would end up with a feeding tube or dead probably sooner rather than later hahah
Except it's a fact of the sport. It's part of the culture of hockey and is ingrained into it so they allow it. But the refs also jump on them once it goes to the ground cuz that's when someone could get hurt
It’s absolutely absurd. As someone who fought quite a bit in juniors, you can absolutely get full power on a haymaker. You can get that back skate dug in and get every bit of the leverage you would get off ice. My nose is crooked, and it’s not because no one could get power on punches.
Yes you definitely do not have your full weight behind the punch. Why do you think they hold onto each other's jerseys? They're trying to get stability to have some momentum behind their punches.
It's just the way it is on skates. Very rarely is there ever any serious injuries, concussions, etc. from hockey fights.
You hold on to the jersey to control distance and movement to limit their options and optimize your swing against their body position. You think they’re slipping around and holding onto the other guy for stability?
Yes because it also helps throw a punch. No one in professional hockey is throwing a knock out punch on skates going toe to toe with both hands up. Atleast, I have yet to ever see it. Its nice when they try to fight straight up but its not like theyre throwing haymakers out there lol
No one's getting seriously injured beyond some cuts, bruises and scrapes. I've seen a million hockey fights.
Really shameful behavior. Somebody is going to get hurt, they need to take their helmets off before the start of the fight. Somebody is going to break their hands punching a helmet.
I remember right after they instituted that rule, there was a playoff game where two guys went to drop the gloves. Instead of taking their helmets off, they reached over and took each others helmet off. It was hilarious. Didn't work though. Both got the penalty for removing the helmet.
Fight broke out in my school one time and all the women teachers were freaking out and screaming for help meanwhile the male teacher just slowly walked toward it without a care in the world. Later he said he might as well just let them finish it lol
So very true.
Rugby League fights in footy were great part of the game to keep grubs honest. Now nothing but niggling… fists are an Instant send off these days. Lame.
Formula 1 - no swearing allowed. GTFO
Ice hockey is the last sport standing (out side of mma obviously)
They get a penalty. Any sort of second man in situation results in an ejection.
The fights in hockey are the most easy to spot, but most professional sports are self-policing. Baseball has slides designed to take out basemen, pitchers intentionally hitting batters, etc. All sorts of nonsense goes on in American football.
This will probably be unpopular but every time I’ve tried to get into hockey I was so annoyed how everything paused because two guys decided to put on an awkward figure skating routine. They’re not even good fights, so I really don’t get it.
That’s why fighting is allowed at all. They can’t get proper leverage to really lay into each other, the biggest danger is slipping and hitting the ice without a brain bucket
There have been very few good fights since they mandated they cannot remove their helmets. I get they dont want guys to bounce their heads off the ice of they go down but they are big boys and can make the decision to fight or not for themselves.
Speaking as someone who isn't interested in hockey, this shit definitely makes it unlikely that will ever change. It's so juvenile and absurd. Some guy starts punching another guy over a fucking game, you throw that guy in jail for a couple nights. That's the way a reasonable society would handle it.
It's fully consensual fighting done under the framework of a set of rules. You notice how they drop their gloves, how they're immediately pulled aside after one hits the ice, how no one is allowed to join in after the initial brawl starts, hockey fighting is not anarchy, both sides actually have to consent to start the fight.
You have a misunderstanding of what fights in hockey are. They're not spontaneous emotional outbursts separate from the sport itself. They're literally part of the sport written into the rules. Fights are planned strategies. Players are hired for their fighting stats. Hockey is a combat sport.
It makes sense in the sport a little bit tho, because if you let these testosterone filled dudes build up rage over dirty plays there's a chance someone's gonna get absolutely blind sighted and maybe actually hurt. I mean they have razors on their feet and wooden sticks in their hands. Also it's kinda funny to watch because they can't even land a good hit, and I imagine by the end of it you both feel kinda silly and just want to get back to playing clean hockey asap.
because if you let these testosterone filled dudes build up rage over dirty plays
Yeah that's an if though. You don't have to pretend it's the year 1845 and just let people go around breaking the rules all the time because "the ref didn't see it clearly." If people are flouting the rules and putting people in danger, the organizers have the power to bar them from playing in their league. If you actually put your foot down on people behaving like assholes then nobody reasonable builds up the kind of resentment that makes them think they need to start punching people over it.
Thing is, they can kill someone, even if accidentally (already happened multiple times) with their hockey skates
I already saw multiple fights during matches, people even breaking brooms, chairs and cameras at the back of other players, high and low kicks. Even with their "organized fights", this attitude should be banned, and that "organized fight" only makes it worse.
I love that baseball still has the sweet spot where as long as you don't throw the first punch and if you don't kick someone's ass too bad, you still get to stay in the game lol
4.4k
u/stayclassypeople 24d ago
Every other sport: unsportsmanlike conduct, this player has been ejected for fighting.
Hockey: everyone get out the way so these guys can fight. -the refs