Former Michigan Teammates and Best Friends Dylan Larkin and Zach Werenski Fight
January 19th, 2021 at 11:09 AM ^
It was a “fight.” They were laughing during the fight. Friends fight all the time in hockey. It’s just part of the game. Wasn’t any anger behind it or anything. All in good fun with the game essentially decided.
January 19th, 2021 at 11:11 AM ^
My dog and cat got in a fight like this once
January 19th, 2021 at 11:28 AM ^
Overheard near the ice:
"AND THAT'S FOR EATING MY DORITOS!"
"OH YEAH, THAT'S FOR TYING MY LACES TOGETHER AT YOST!"
January 19th, 2021 at 2:56 PM ^
"Did you touch my drums set? I know you touched my drum stick because there's a chip out of the left one."
January 19th, 2021 at 11:29 AM ^
I've never understood how what could get you arrested on the street is allowed on the ice. It's not boxing or MMA. It's fighting in hockey. Even in other sports fighting gets you suspended, but in hockey it gets you a 5 minute penalty. It's just bizarre. And, afterwards both guys accept it and generally show no ill will. It's the strangest thing.
January 19th, 2021 at 11:50 AM ^
The effects of not having fighting in hockey would be way worse / lead to much more injury than fighting still being allowed. When hitting is a critical part of the game, and when questionable dirty / out-of-line hits happen (or even good hits happen against players you don’t want taking big hits) — it is much better to settle it with a gentleman’s fight than an escalation of even dirtier hits / cheap shots. They aren’t there in the fights trying to actually hurt the other person — it just needs to be done to send a message and resolve the situation. You don’t have the goons out there anymore playing fewer than five minutes just to start fights.
January 19th, 2021 at 12:07 PM ^
So to avoid cheap shots, football should allow fighting?
January 19th, 2021 at 12:15 PM ^
Not disagreeing, but just playing devil's advocate, but how is that different than football?
January 19th, 2021 at 1:03 PM ^
Football and hockey aren’t comparable because in football you’re lining up and hitting a guy on every play. You cheap shot there and you can get laid out on the next play.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:03 PM ^
I don’t buy it. Sure, that’s the justification that hockey people use, but I never noticed a meaningful difference in cheap/dirty/dangerous hits between the nhl (where fighting is allowed) and college hockey (where it isn’t). If anything, dirty hits are worse at the nhl level (aside from FYS trying to kill Kampfer a few years back), or at least they used to be when i was watching more hockey
January 19th, 2021 at 1:56 PM ^
I would say that since the NHL features bigger and faster players, the number of bang-bang plays is greater, and the consequences of such hits are more severe. The stakes are also much higher, with the league not wanting to see Kariya-type situations where a star is sidelined for extended periods of time.
Other than that, it's just the tradition and history of the game. The vast majority of scraps also don't result in serious injury.
January 19th, 2021 at 3:17 PM ^
I don’t buy it.
I tend to agree. I'm not a hockey guy so I don't know ins and out like football, but I get the sense it's more of a "this is the way it's always been done" kind of thing, which IMO is not a great reason to do something. At some point they should really look at the true value of allowing fighting in the NHL and ask if it really makes sense in today's game.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:09 PM ^
This is correct. It is a means of self-policing the game to hold players accountable in a way that refs and officials can't or won't.
January 19th, 2021 at 11:51 AM ^
I mean, it is a white person sport....
(we're not ones for morbid humor here, it seems.)
January 19th, 2021 at 12:05 PM ^
Now that's a racist comment.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:12 PM ^
Not at all...ppl shove each other in basketball and football and it’s faux outrage. Yet ppl scrap in hockey and it’s celebrated. You tell me what the big difference is in the sports ?
January 19th, 2021 at 1:40 PM ^
I think the biggest difference is that basketball players look like 5 year olds having slap fights when they try to act tough (there are exceptions, but generally basketball players slot in just a little above soccer players on the toughness scale).
Football players wear too many pads, not to mention helmets with full cage facemasks, to make fighting worthwhile. Plus - if you’re pissed at the guy lining up across from you, you get the chance to hit him on every single snap
January 19th, 2021 at 2:02 PM ^
Basketball fights looking the way they do have absolutely zero to do with toughness. The vast majority of basketball players are tall long limbed folks, tall long limbed folks who have not been trained to fight have terrible technique that often looks garish. If you want to see some tall folks who can fight check out any fights from mma fighter/kickboxer semmy schilt and mma fighter Stefan Struve. Both 7 footers who can whoop some ass.
January 19th, 2021 at 2:46 PM ^
No, I’m talking about a guy getting tripped on his way to the basket and proceeding to writhe about like he was gutshot. I know I’ve seen more recent examples, but the one that’s popping out is that ‘Boo Buie’ kid from northwestern who spend like 5 minutes laying down because he got a bit of a charlie horse from Chaundee’s knee, only to come back in the game a couple minutes later. A hockey player doesn’t even come off the ice for that, and a football player may miss a single play. Like i said, there are exceptions; but generally basketball players are not particularly tough
January 19th, 2021 at 6:08 PM ^
Tell that to Rudy T
January 19th, 2021 at 7:15 PM ^
Good point - that happened . . . Once
January 19th, 2021 at 12:13 PM ^
I agree...really more weird than anything. It also seems kind of dangerous...why risk an injury with something seemingly pointless?
But I suppose it's part of the sport.
January 19th, 2021 at 12:55 PM ^
I've wondered about this for a long time. A bench clearing brawl in a baseball game with punches thrown has no criminal consequences for the individuals. If a fight breaks out between two guys in the stands at the exact same time, they are going to jail.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:25 PM ^
Let me guess.. you never have played high level hockey... I have... and you're on rails going 50 mph with no brakes, and constantly hitting each other. And legal hits, tend to be returned, and it escalates.. fights are a pressure release valve building up in the game. It is the one sport that is Old Testament eye for an eye. Pay attention closely and see what happens after a big fight happens... almost always the pressure is released, and the teams play cleanly for awhile.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:30 PM ^
To get a better understanding of how hockey was back in the 80s & 90s Read this GREAT write up on one of The Wings Best enforcers. I found this a month or so ago when someone started a thread about punching helmets and first to mind was Joey Kocur. This is a MUST read for wings fans of that era. Maybe you’ll get a sense of why people didn’t take a run at Stevie Y or Wayne Gretzky. Cheap shots happened but they didn’t go unpunished.
http://grantland.com/features/michael-maccambridge-revisits-johnette-howard-classic-making-goon-national/
January 19th, 2021 at 11:47 AM ^
Punching somebody in the ear is a sign of endearment in hockey.
January 19th, 2021 at 12:43 PM ^
About ten years ago, when several long-time enforcers killed themselves in a very short time period, this became a big issue. People thought the culture would change. There have been some changes, but fighting is still part of the sport.
If you look up the story of Derek Boogaard, who died at 28, it's rather sad. He had no hockey skills whatsoever, but he was probably the best fighter ever to play the game. Brain analysis after his death suggests his CTE was far enough along that he would have had dementia within a couple of years.
There's no easy answer here. Enforcing started because there's a competitive advantage in intimidating opponents so that they don't even think about checking your team's star players. Changing the culture of sport itself is very difficult. Even in rec league hockey, at least in some leagues, fighting is part of it.
In football, where hitting is part of every single play, there's no role for an enforcer and the culture is very different. Fights are considered a loss of control, an inability to handle the nature of the game. Coaches will let tempers flare a little in practice, but if it becomes a real fight, they're on it quickly.
Given the apparent prevalence of CTE in many major sports (soccer is now getting a lot of attention, with the suggestion that heading the ball should be disallowed), the entire sporting world may look very different 20 years from now.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:01 PM ^
Probert v. Domi this was not.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:06 PM ^
Didn't watch, but I'm sure it was similar to the bar scene fake fighting in A Millions Ways To Die In The West.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:14 PM ^
Ehh...the teams were throwing down, so they “picked” each other because they know they wouldn’t hurt each other.
January 19th, 2021 at 1:32 PM ^
I think hockey has always gotten a pass because it is hard to do a ton of damage to someone punching them when you are on ice skates. Yeah every once in a while someone lands a good headshot but generally the damage done is far less than what could happen in a basketball fight.
CTE may make us reevaluate the damage being done.