This is why so many people are against fighting in hockey

[Slimpikins]

I should have chosen my words better when making the thread title. I didn't intend for this to be a ban-fighting vs keep-fighting thread. It seems to me that we had 1 of those not too long ago. I mostly just wanted to talk about incidents like these, which in my opinion give hockey fights a bad reputation and why I would like to see something done to get rid of them. As for good clean fights between 2 willing participants, or even an unwilling 1 following a dangerous play (which this certainly was not), I don't have strong feelings either way. I can enjoy them but wouldn't really miss them all that much if they were gone.

That is a stance I can get on board with. I think harsher suspensions for dangerous plays (fighting or otherwise) would really help get stuff like this out of the game and make it safer. Watching my brother progress through the local travel teams, I was surprised at how mush stuff these kids got away with (if you thought NHL refs were bad...). Sure fighting was a major penalty and sometimes a suspension but I have seen baseball bat type swings at players arms and blatant head shots get completely overlooked or only a 2 minute penalty.

My whole point with my absurd comment earlier is to try and point out that fighting is not even the most dangerous thing in hockey. I agree with needing a more broad look at player safety.

 

[Slimpikins]

C'mon, Slim. You're better than this post. Clearly checking and hitting serves a purpose in trying to play the puck, get the puck, and prevent the other team from scoring. That has root purposes in the basics of the game and I think few here disagree the manner you hit/check others has limitations as well.

Insult of this post being beneath me aside, you focused on the tongue in cheek part of the comment and completely skipped the main point. And although I believe that fighting does have a purpose in the game, the point is that it is not as dangerous as hitting, cheapshots or this mugging (which wasn't even a fight). Fighting just gets the attention because it is so visceral.

 

[elocomotive]

Insult of this post being beneath me aside, you focused on the tongue in cheek part of the comment and completely skipped the main point. And although I believe that fighting does have a purpose in the game, the point is that it is not as dangerous as hitting, cheapshots or this mugging (which wasn't even a fight). Fighting just gets the attention because it is so visceral.

No, it's because it doesn't serve a purpose within the goal of the game.

If you want to make the argument it prevents hitting/cheap shots, that's fine. I simply don't agree with that. I don't disagree that hitting causes far more injuries than fighting does, I just don't believe fighting prevents those hitting injuries and think it actual escalates and leads to more of them. It is just another tool in a game of one-upsmanship in unnecessary violence imo.

I wasn't insulting you. You're a strong poster and it was a lowest common denominator kind of argument which I didn't realize was tongue-in-cheek (and has been made by others not tongue-in-cheek).

 

[elocomotive]

My whole point with my absurd comment earlier is to try and point out that fighting is not even the most dangerous thing in hockey. I agree with needing a more broad look at player safety.

I don't think anyone is saying you can't reform other areas, but banning fighting would be an easy change in the sense that you can't just completely eliminate hitting from the game. That's all.