Hockey Ping!
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Posted on 11/26/2014 8:29:52 AM PST by Citizen Zed
Would the elimination of fighting make hockey a safer sport?
The answer is no, at least according to experts polled in a recent survey conducted by The Hockey News.
The magazine asked 24 NHL executives, scouts, agents and coaches numerous questions regarding fisticuffs, the most contentious issue in hockey. The insiders, as a group, “expressed some concern” over its declining prevalence.
Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said hockey would be less safe if fighting was eradicated, while 29% feel it wouldn’t change much in the way of safety and 13% believe it would boost safety levels.
(Excerpt) Read more at slam.canoe.ca ...
Fighting is almost entirely gone from the sport now. Bench clearers are gone, and one-on-one fights are averaging less than 1 a game.
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the only thing keeping opponents from taking liberties used to be the enforcers. now its up to the NHL Player Safety
(i.e. Brendan Shanahan’s group) to come in after the fact with fines and suspensions for dangerous hits. before Shanny was involved in this we lost players like Kariya and Lindros and Pronger to concussions. then there was that career ending hit by Todd Bertuzzi on Steve Moore. Then you have the knee on knee specialists like Bryan Marchment who
sent many players to the injured reserve with dangerous hits.
Yep, the instigator penalty has definitely led to the rise of the cheap shot. I’d really like to see it go away, or at least an exception when the person instigated against has received a roughing, spearing, tripping, slashing, or unsportsmanlike call previously in the game.
That was great! Thanks for posting that.
As a kid, I loved the Bullies. And they kicked some Commie ass.
Excellent point. I’m not saying the Pittsburgh players are angels, but they certainly seem to get way more than their fair share of checks.
Ungloved Fist-BUMPing
Best analysis I have seen - cheap shot artists never drop the gloves so they don’t have to answer for what they have done. Instigator penalty is kind of like a subsidy for cheap shots.
It's a beautiful game if we can keep it.
like everything else that is good, it has to be corrupted. It’s too white of a game. And too manly. It’s go to be more diversified. More gays needed. And Latinos, not enough of them.
And how come I didn’t see any hockey players tweet their disgust with the Darrel Wilson/Mike Brown decision? What’s up with that?
I was at this game earlier this year with my boy. We’re Jets fans in St Louis.
See this end of the game melee...nothing brutal but fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kquijCu1HY0
Gloves and sticks littering the ice!
is it just me or do the Pens like to dive a lot?
it seems like they go down, well, readily..
Grapes is great. And pretty conservative too.
Fighting prevents murder.
I think they get more than their share of hits simply because they are one of the better teams in the NHL. No more complicated than that.
Safer? No, fighting is probably the safest contact in hockey. Far more players have been injured by big open ice hits, big hits on the boards, bad positioning hits, and heads crashing on the edge of the stanchions by the benches.
It’s already been “pussified” by the hybrid icing and enlarged crease. Heaven forbid the goalie get touched. How about the turn into the boards move with the puck, get checked, draw penalty. No one would of done that ten years ago or they would of eaten the boards. I say, quit changing the rules and slug it out one way or the other. It’s a fast, rough game. That’s what used to make it beautiful.
A few years back at the invitation of a players dad I attended his son’s Junior game. Kid was a decent Junior player could score, played hard and skated like the wind.
During a shift, with the players on the bench getting ready for a shift change a player from the opposition skated down the boards and cheap shots the kid who is on the bench square in the mouth. The ref misses it.
The kid is lying on the bench, blood pouring out of his nose and mouth and the other team is looking on, knowing what is about to happen. The other coach, who I coached with in previous seasons and a class guy, sends the player back out to take the face off and the beating that is about to ensue. The player doesn’t want to go back out there. It is clear that he is not a fighter and the cheap shot he just laid on my friends kid has to be repaid.
Coach sends out the teams goon. 6’4, 230 pounds of mean. The kid who cheap shot my friends kid is 170 pounds soaking wet. In Junior, when the fight starts, the helmets come off as do the gloves. The ref comes to the bench and the coach whispers something in his ear. The ref looks over at my friend’s kid, nods, skates over to the two linesman and not another word is said.
Puck drops, goons helmet and gloves come off in a very casual manner. The piss from the cheap shot artist is now on the ice. I kid you not. The goon is now laughing and telling the kid to put down the helmet and drop the gloves, he won’t. The refs are at the scores table, not watching the play. Cheap shot looks over to his bench, everyone turns away, even the coach.
Cheap shot doesn’t even bother to put up his hands to defend himself. He wants it over in one punch. Should have gone down because the second punch takes out whatever teeth remained after the first punch.
Coach and I still bring up the story every time we speak. My friends kid now teaches somewhere in Oregon. The cheap shot artist was put on a plane back to Slovakia after spending a couple of nights in the hospital. Justice was served.
That, and “garage league.”
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