I went to a fight and a hocke game broke out.
Fighting is already basically gone. .19 fights a game. The game has evolved. Scoring depth is mandatory, enforcers are gone.
“Bleed all over ‘em, let ‘em know you’re there!”
Dave’s a Killer!
Dave’s a mess!
A whiney, stupid article from someone who obviously watches little hockey
Speaking as a non fighter, the NHL was a more polite brand of sport when it was only five minutes for fighting. Also when many did not wear helmets or visors and as a result, kept their sticks down and did not resort to slamming someone into the boards headfirst which is so commonly accepted these days.
If the NHL were to become like the US NCAA (with fighting banned and full cages mandatory), that’s my completely ending any interest in the sport.
Toxic masculinity. The horror! The horror!/s
Idiot.
There are way too many fags and pussies in the NHL.
Fighting is already disappearing from the NHL. Interestingly, this has nothing to do with changes in the rules. What’s driving this are the ongoing changes in strategies for building an NHL roster and coaching the game. Nowadays, teams will typically roll four forwards lines and three defense pairs — which means all 18 skaters are expected to contribute during a game. With a salary cap in place, this also means that teams have to weigh each player’s contributions on the ice against the salary that he is being paid.
The “enforcer” is disappearing from the NHL because teams no longer have the luxury of having a game roster spot filled by a player who mainly a fighter and is expected to spend a lot of time serving penalties. The enforcer is also disappearing because with the salary cap, it makes no sense to pay even the league minimum salary of $750,000 to a player who fits this description.
Probert and Durbano must be rolling in their graves. Don Cherry was right about Jaromir Jagr… All he ever gave us was the dive. European sissy-boy players, not men. Who will ever forget the great ass kicking that the Red Wings gave the AV’s in retaliation for the Draper hit? It’s part of the legend, the lore of the game!
Spoken like someone that’s never played the game, and the closest he’s gotten to one is his TV screen.
The role of the “enforcer” at the NHL level was never to fight for fighting’s sake. Their role was to protect the skill players on his own team. There were too many cheap shots being taken against the skill guys, with the only consequence being a 2-minute (or sometimes 5-minute) trip to the sin-bin. The presence of the enforcer is to provide an incentive to the cheap-shot player to keep it clean.
Some teams still have one or more, and some of those guys have talent too. Take, for example, Tom Wilson of the Washington Caps. The guy is huge, has at least some skill (with a knack for scoring goals) and protects guys like Backstrom & Ovechkin (not that the Great 8 needs much protection). But the other side of the coin is that Wilson also has a knack for cheap-shots himself, and often hits to hurt. Guys like him are the reason other teams need to come with someone of similar size - as a counterbalance, if nothing else.
As others have noted, the game has evolved a lot since the “Broad Street Bullies” of the 70’s, and teams are younger, faster, and more skillful. So you can’t fill your 4th line with goons any longer - at least not if you want to win. It will continue to evolve, and I don’t see it going backwards.
“It oversees the only professional sport that condones fighting”
Boxing, MMA?
People go to races to see crashes, they go to hockey games to see fights.
BTW I’ve watched that movie a hundred times and still laugh my butt off.
1970’s Broad Street Bullies.
I remember when the Goldie Howe hat trick was popular. Dave Williams was fun...the NHL is not what it was in the 90s. In 1980s, in Philadelphia, a Flyers fan used to start a fire behind the goalie to distract the visiting goalie...
What really bothers me is the “Knights of the Round Table” culture the helmets and visors and oversized shoulder and elbow pads created in the game, starting in about the mid 1980s. High sticks and elbows and cheap shots from behind really increased at that time compared to even just ten years prior to that.
And nowadays you are getting these people like the author who want fighting banned and full cages mandatory in the NHL. If that were to take place, the NHL will be just as nasty and brutal with the cheap shot artists as US NCAA is.