Steve Yzerman calls for game misconduct penalty for fighting.

[dsjunior1388 81]

He instantly becomes the biggest name attached to the anti-fighting movement.

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/darren_dreger/?id=433262

[iceman8310 105]

here we go again

[wrangler 157]

That link doesn't work for me; it takes me to a post a new topic screen.

[RadioGaGa 162]

Not sure what his original intention was for that link, but here is the TSN story

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/darren_dreger/?id=433262

[Chadd 916]

As I said last time it came up; If the league bans fighting, they need to seriously step up the severity of suspensions for cheap shots. There has to be a concern on the part of the players that any violation of the rules could result in missing a large number of games and losing a significant portion of their salary. If that does not happen in conjunction with any serious effort to eliminate fighting, there will be a significant increase in cheap shots.

[Stewie 721]

also a ban in fighting would be silly in this regard. teams would stop stocking enforcers, but agitator types could then go after star players hoping to entice them into a fight. you only have so many guys on the ice to stick up for your star players, i just see this getting ugly.

[chippa13 1844]

I disagree that cheap shots will increase without fighting. Look at how many head shots we see with fighting in the game. Fighting is not a deterrent no matter how many times players try to say it. Increased suspensions for cheap shots needs to happen regardless of what they do with fighting.

[wrangler 157]

Maybe they will ban fighting. Maybe they'll enforce the rules. Maybe they'll even get consistent about it.

I'm not holding my breath.

[215BroadStBullies610 435]

The way sports has changed over time, it wouldn't surprise me. They want minimize risk as much as possible so they can cover their own wallets.

[ChrisMolnar 14]

I don't think there's a single player in the league that would want to see fighting go out the window. It's part of the game, always has been, and everyone knows those people that go to games just to see the 2 biggest guys snap the mitts and go at it. Nothing good will come out of it if fighting is banned.

[chippa13 1844]

If you're only going to the game for the fights then we don't want you.

[wrangler 157]

If it's fighting that people want to see, they can buy tickets to boxing, UFC, etc. I've never understood the attitude that it's important for attendance to keep hockey fights.

[215BroadStBullies610 435]

I think it's just the violence that draws people. I can live without fighting.

[Law Goalie 147]

Show me a league where the introduction of game misconducts for fighting alone has A) measurably decreased fighting, and B) not increased other, more dangerous offenses.

The solution to 90% of this hand-wringing is simple: eliminate take-downs.

Take-downs are a relatively recent phenomenon in hockey fights. They are also by far the most dangerous moment in a fight, and in hockey generally. Every other sport that has take-downs employs a padded or suspended shock-absorbing surface; our guys do it on ice over concrete. None of them make the combatants stand on knives while wrestling.

Once upon a time, fighting was about a delicate balance of honour and embarrassment. Everyone knew that you could hurt another guy way, way worse with your stick, your skate-blades, or with a brutal hit than you could with your fists, but the single greatest danger to everyone on the ice is -- the ice. The point of fighting was simply to say, 'OK, you think you're a tough guy; let's even the playing field, go toe-to-toe, and see how you hold up.' *Anyone* can spear or blind-side a guy who is minimally aware of the threat, but sparring with someone is a very different experience. These fights did not end in take-downs; then ended in exhausted standing breakups, often leaning against the glass for support, or in a strange sort of mutually-protective falling down.

At some point (my guess is the early 90s), the *language* of take-downs began to enter the game; people began to talk about 'winning' a fight through a take-down, and take-downs began to happen more often. Suddenly, *most* fights ended with two guys standing on knife-blades trying to flip each other over onto a sheet of slippery concrete. This has been the single most reckless and stupid development in the history of hockey.

The solution is simple: add punishment (in whatever form) for take-downs during a fight. If you engage in wrestling with an aim to take-down, rather than a struggle while sparring, you're assessed an additional penalty of some kind; if the other guy is hurt, or the take-down attempt is egregious, you face suspension.

Once we've eliminated this most stupid, dangerous, and pointless aspect of hockey fighting -- in fact, of *any* combative sport on the planet -- then we might be able to have a sensible discussion of what remains.

I don't necessarily think that fighting is proper to hockey, but as long as it's in the game, allowing take-downs is disastrously stupid.

[chippa13 1844]

If you watch the true, seasoned fighters going at it, you almost never see a takedown occur. I don't think I remember a single Shawn Thornton fight ending with him taking a guy down to the ice. Takedowns usually occur when one of the combatants really isn't all that interested in throwing but thinks just dropping the gloves and holding on is enough to cement his manhood. The injury to Parros was a freak thing where Orr fell and instinctively held on pulling Parros to the ice.

[Law Goalie 147]

I'd agree that *good* fighters don't do this to each other -- hell, even Evander Kane kept Matt Cooke's head from hitting the ice after he KO'd him, and like you, I can't remember Thornton ever doing this -- but it still happens with alarming frequency. Part of it is that when guys give up a lot of reach in a fight (like Orr does to Parros, in spite of his gorilla dimensions) they start grappling even more, and will often try to throw the other guy off balance by tugging, wrenching, etc. without necessarily intending a take-down. I do think there's enough of a difference between sweater-clutching (esp. at the elbows) and trying to throw the other guy down that refs would have pretty good accuracy that could of course by supplemented in review. In Orr v Parros, I'm not sure; I'd have to watch it again.

[gxc999 7]

Good couple of posts above there, guys. Fully with ya. The idea that you can fix things by simply banning fighting is tremendously naive.

[wrangler 157]

Good couple of posts above there, guys. Fully with ya. The idea that you can fix things by simply banning fighting is tremendously naive.

I've tried, but can't quite grasp your point.

"things" -- nonspecific, inclusive, with an unspecified antecedent

"fix things by simply banning fighting" -- I'm unsure which argument, and whose, this references, without actually addressing it.

"tremendously naive" -- Characterizing other individuals is not an argument, and ultimately adds nothing to discussion or enlightenment.

[Law Goalie 147]

And I shouldn't have characterised concern about brain-safety as 'hand-wringing'; that was lame of me.

I'm very suspect of my thinking on fighting; I know a lot of it's coloured by the fights I've been in, of several of which I'm unduly proud (well, one's deserved in an absolute moral sense). I cannot, however, escape the feeling that fighting is necessary to the hockey culture I know. Removing it from the game would be like trying to keep moose from locking antlers during mating season. We could go around trying to put giant Nerf covers on all the antlers, or helmets and neck-guards on the moose, or station millions of park rangers to break up fights as they start, and exile aggressive moose to remote and exotic regions, and offering animal therapy sessions... and it would be an exercise in futility.

I honestly think the only way we'll lose fighting is if the game becomes so fast that the act is rendered impossible -- for example, if the game didn't stop during a fight, and the teams just played 4v4. If there was a line-brawl, there would be a huge incentive to dodge out of the fracas, grab your stick, and zip off on a breakaway... Not unlike what Marchand did to Cooke.

[wrangler 157]

I'd like to see fighting gone for purely selfish reasons. I much prefer to watch gameplay.

And certainly the opinions of a drunken Scot with CTE are suspect. . .

Hold! Is that my petard?

[Chadd 916]

The league needs to step up enforcement on cheap shots and make the suspensions more meaningful. Fighting is obviously not a deterrent to guys like Kaleta or the dozens of others like him that seemingly every team employs. Once those players fear suspensions for their actions and teams are afraid to employ them, fighting will become even less common. Once it becomes a rare event, the league would have an easier time phasing it out, if that is the route that they want to go.

[Law Goalie 147]

Major suspensions for dangerous plays should be a given; that they aren't is certainly a big problem.

That said, part of the reason guys like Kaleta are undeterred by fighting is that they have incredibly easy and actually beneficial ways out. When somebody tries to fight him, he either screams and evades -- intent on drawing a penalty -- or if truly cornered turns it into a wrestling match, where the only danger he poses is a take-down smashing the other guy's head on the ice. His behaviour in fights is a microcosm of his behaviour in general: I want my NHL paycheques, and I don't care who I have to hurt to keep them coming. If we really believe in the power of suspensions as a deterrent, suspending guys for take-downs (attempted or otherwise) will mean that idiots like Kaleta have to 'take their licks' far more effectively. It seems obvious when you say it aloud (or type it out, as the case may be) but a broken nose or a missing tooth does very odd things to one's state of mind; that smugness the Kaletaesque among of thrive on evaporates very quickly.

My main concern with the NHL's direction on fighting is that it has, by and large, exacerbated the problems associated with it. We are a long, long way from the BS Bullies (ah, acronyms) grabbing five-a-side and beating whole teams down, line by line, but the fact is that guys like Barber and Dornhoffer were still pretty damn good players, the forerunners of Probert and (ideally) Iginla rather than, say, Jon Scott and (RIP) Derek Boogaard. The NHL's rules have (without their intent) systematically turned fighting into staged matches between superheavyweights, so that teams could A) avoid the instigator penalty, and B) keep their power forwards on the ice. Those guys are so big and so strong that they actually *can* seriously hurt people with a few punches, but precious few of them (Chara aside) are truly NHL hockey players. They're just taking up roster spots so that a team can send out its 'champion' to fist-joust against the other's. Now that they have to take one another's helmets off before they fight (last night's break-up proved that) means we are fully back in the non-metaphorical chip-on-the-shoulder routine.

In an ideal world, there would be no dangerous play at all in hockey. Everyone would know that if they crossed a line, they would face a penalty straight away and a suspension to follow. But the problem with the penalty is that if you cripple another team's star, that might be worth 5 and a game; the problem is the suspension is that while it may effect behaviour in the abstract, administrational deterrents rarely work in the heat of the moment. But the threat of imminent physical harm *does* work this way. If a would-be robber sees two women with purses, one walking with a burly protector and one without, all other things being equal, he will never pick the protected one; even two tiny women walking together a vastly safer. *Any* immediate physical threat to the attacker is powerfully dissuasive.

On that basis, I'd say that fighting is on some level at least *potentially* necessary. It needs to be a possible outcome of a dangerous play. Thus, an ideal hockey game would be one where fighting was possible, but never called-for -- as it is in the playoffs.

[chippa13 1844]

There is another deterrent that seems to work. Look at the curious case of Matt Cooke. He was beyond a punk who nobody thought would ever be able to clean up his act. Then a strange thing happened. His own coach and GM took a stand agreed with everyone else. They didn't just blindly support their player but openly criticized his style of play. This is really the crux of the situation. Borderline players are usually supported by their organizations, coaches, and teammates.

When Paille made a bad hit, he was criticized by Ference for it. Claude Julien said that those were the kind of hits that the NHL is trying to get out of the game and didn't make excuses for his player. That is the kind of atmosphere that needs to surround the game. Unfortunately, Ference was crucified by much of the hockey intelligencia for not standing by his teammate.

I have held all along that a combination of peer pressure from teammates and pressure from inside players' own organizations would do more to clean up the game than all of the suspensions and rule changes. Oh, if only.........

[hunterphfr 12]

I'm putting this out there for the sole purpose of furthering the discussion. The irony of all this is there was an article in the Tampa Times a few days ago that has the Lightning and the Sabres tied for most fights in the NHL and Gudas second in the league individually. So basically Yzerman is begrudging fighting in the league and yet doing absolutely nothing to reign in such actions in his own organization.

[wrangler 157]

I'm putting this out there for the sole purpose of furthering the discussion. The irony of all this is there was an article in the Tampa Times a few days ago that has the Lightning and the Sabres tied for most fights in the NHL and Gudas second in the league individually. So basically Yzerman is begrudging fighting in the league and yet doing absolutely nothing to reign in such actions in his own organization.

"absolutely nothing"? Do you have a source within the organization?

I don't see any irony here. His team's doing what the other teams are doing. A rule change would outlaw fighting for all teams. You seem to imply that being in favor of that rule change should lead him to stop his team from fighting, while the other teams can still continue. I disagree that that should logically follow.