What's All The Fighting About In Hockey?

I went to the Flyers game vs. Tampa Bay last night.    I watched the game from a corporate suite courtesy of my brother, which was awesome.     I was expecting to pay an arm and a leg for parking, a soda, and a pretzel, but the suite covered food, drink, and parking.    There was waitstaff as well.   Wow!

But that's not the theme of this post.    Early in the game, a fight broke out between a Flyers goon and a Tampa goon.     I wasn't aware there was such animosity between these two teams from different divisions.     The crowd roared like Romans watching gladiators go at it in the Roman Colosseum.    Later on, there was another throwdown between two more goons and the crowd again showed its bloodlust.    The first fight was won the Flyers guy, the second by the Lightning's.    That's a 1-1 tie in fights even though the Flyers won in the only score that ultimately matters:  Goals.

I find it fascinating that, other than boxing, hockey is the only sport which allows its players to fight during a game.    And better yet, the fighters may not necessarily be ejected from the game.   Hockey is a rough enough sport with checks, boarding, knocking players to the ice, having your face rearranged by a stick, and getting hit with a frozen puck.    Fighting is the element which can be controlled and yet the referees stand and watch it go on until one of the players drops to the ice.   At that point, the referee jumps in because they have to responsible for player safety after all.

It's 2013 and hockey fans love to see a fight.    I would think we've evolved more, but as Danny Devito put it in War Of The Roses, "We came from mud and millions of years later, at our core is still mud."    I hear all of the reasons why fighting is "necessary" in hockey:  it gets the team riled up, it gets the fans riled up, it shows who is boss, etc.    Actually I don't find those reasons to be compelling.   I feel the fighting has outlived its usefulness, in case it ever really had any.    In the 70s, when hockey was trying to gain a foothold with the American sports fan, fights and rougher play were much more common.    It made the sport unique, if not necessarily better than football, baseball, or basketball.   


When both fights broke out, I just sat there hoping they would be over soon so we could all get back to watching hockey.     Hockey is an exciting sport and I think fighting detracts from it.    But I'm waging a losing battle here, I know.    I'm waiting for the class action lawsuit from hockey players who suffered long-term effects of concussions blaming the NHL for doing nothing to stop them.    What could be the NHL's defense?   All you need to see is refs standing around watching players duke it out and you will see that the NHL won't have a leg to stand on.    Unless they don't believe that punching and knocking players to the hard ice has any impact on the brain.   Until then, keep on punching.