Does a hockey fight need a game around it? Bare Knuckle Ice Wars will find out with ESPN deal

Yahoo News! ^ | Fri, July 24, 2026 | Chuck Mindenhall

[nickcarraway]

If you've been to one of those sports bars with 25 screens, you've seen what happens when a fight breaks out in the middle of a hockey game. People pause a second to watch it play out, the way they do when strolling past somebody on a slot machine in Vegas who's hit an unexpected bonus.

There's no guarantee that a fight will break out in a hockey game, of course, but it always feels a little lucky when one does.

This is what the Bare Knuckle Ice Wars, which officially debuted in 2022, built its premise on. To do away with the hockey and focus just on the fights. Some people go in for the toe drags and odd man rushes and game-altering shorthanded chances, but the only goal here is to do away with the puck. To give people just the fights they crave, the game within the game, without the distraction of a game.

To some this might seem like just extracting the cream filling from a Hostess Twinkie. But you know who understands a good on-ice fight, which has been a bonus attraction to the professional hockey ranks for more than 100 years?

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[E. Pluribus Unum]

Let me be the first to say I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out.

[EvilCapitalist]

Just thought I’d be the first one to post a clip of a Slap Shot fight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5DjtKq9610

[Lockbox]

So this is like the WNBA but on ice and with men?

[EQAndyBuzz]

This is but a step to destroy the game. Next they will remove fighting from the NHL. And they will do it fully knowing why fighting is an integral part of hockey.