Kin
New member
oldman said:Yeah, well I guess we look at it differently. If I was a Leaf fan and some unnamed player on the other team broke Kessel's arm with a two handed slash and the Leafs bench just looked on without any type of payback I wouldn't be very happy. Just giving that player a penalty/fine/suspension just doesn't cut it when my teams best player is gone for 4 weeks when they trying to get a playoff spot.
Again, though, the idea that carrying around a player for the purpose of punching someone who slashes a star player leads to a decrease of slashes to star players doesn't have much basis in fact. If it did, teams wouldn't bench their enforcers in the playoffs when star players are needed most.
And, again, a ban on fighting in the NHL wouldn't lead to no fighting in the NHL, it would just lead to fighting in the NHL the way there is fighting in the NBA, MLB or the NFL, infrequently and suspendable.
oldman said:I was also a huge fan of '70's hockey. Those Rangers, Bruins, Flyers, Islanders games were great. The post 2005 calling a penalty every 2 minutes not so much.
That's fine. That's, quite frankly, the best argument for fighting. Not for it and any utilitarian value that it really doesn't have but admitting that some people like watching fighting and they like the narrative fighting creates.
It's not, in and of itself, a reason to keep fighting but at least it can be debated on its own merits.