Why fight in hockey

Today, the fourth-liners are cost-efficient skill players instead of goons, and staged fights are a rarity without those pugilists on the rosters. In just more than a decade, the league that saw Carcillo amass penalty minutes with 19 regular-season fights as a rookie has seen an incremental decline in fighting in every full season of the past Many are saying there's no going back. The final fighting tallies for the season were new lows across the board for the NHL in the nearly two decades of stats compiled by HockeyFights.

Given that the NHL didn't exactly have a pacifist streak before , it's safe to assume we're seeing fighting at its nadir:. In 1, regular-season games in , there were fights in which at least one player received a fighting major. That's down from fights in The number of fights in a full season has dropped every season since , when there were fights.

In , that number was From the season to , the NHL averaged fights per season. The rate for was 0. From to , there were seven seasons in which the NHL had a fights-per-game average of more than 0.

As stated earlier, this was the first time that the NHL had fewer than games with a fighting major. From to '12, the NHL averaged games with a fighting major per season. In , Does it seem like we're seeing fewer brawl-filled games than ever? That perception is reality: Just 24 games last season had more than one fight.

That's down from 41 games in , which had been the previous low for the past two decades, at a minimum. Finally, players engaged in a fight during the season. That's down from players in This number has been declining since a recent peak of players in , which matched the totals from the fight-happy days of An increase in penalties, the famous rule 48, and stiffer suspensions for violent hits to the head have been the biggest changes that the NHL has implemented.

No fighting might mean less head injuries! Many people close to the sport suggest that fighting actually reduces on ice violence. But do two wrongs make a right? Players know the risks that they are taking when they get into fights. I can see why people like fighting in the game. Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

It often indicates a user profile. Log out. But why? Marchand did what most parents tell their children to do when presented with a fight. He walked away. In so doing, he drew a minor penalty from Eller and gave his team a power play. Rather than stepping up to fight Eller and allowing them to settle their differences, Marchand refused thus breaking one of the many unwritten rules of fighting in hockey. Hockey is the only professional sport in which fighting is allowed.

Though technically against the rules, two players fighting on the ice will only net those players five minutes in the penalty box rather than a lengthy suspension. But if fighting were just about raw emotion and trying to inflict physical damage on an opponent, it would quickly become distasteful.

Those rules are constantly evolving over time. How does a fight start? Why does a fight start? You just kind of have to be out there, feel it out and make a decision. Fighting used to be much more prevalent in the sport. It was valued to such a degree that players who could barely produce offensively and got very little playing time were felt to be a necessity in the lineup. That's just the way it was, their tough guy vs. That's gone now.