Quote:
Originally Posted by Omar Comin
It seems to me that baseball and hockey both have fight rules where "if you do x/y/or z then a fight is going to break out basically every time" compared to basketball or football where the fights happen because of emotions more than not.
Deuces isn't totally wrong, just way overstating things with total certainty as usual.
Fighting in hockey is ritualized and voluntary. Typically the guys doing the fighting aren't the same guys that caused whatever beef; they're just the designated goons. You can't fight with someone that doesn't agree to fight you by dropping his gloves and skating away with you. Todd Bertuzzi hit a dude who declined to fight (hurt him really badly) and everyone agreed he was a terrible thug. Also, the fact that they are on skates really limits the amount of damage they can do to one another (imagine guys bombing away like that on a basketball court).
The NBA had Kermit Washington almost kill Rudy Tomjanovich with a punch. They realized the super huge athletic freaks could do a ton of damage to one another very quickly. Also, NBA players are valuable and well known as individuals while hockey players are basically anonymous and we don't really care too much if they get hurt*. Of course, the NBA way overdoes its anti-fighting stuff but that's a different argument.
*Like, I can tell you where Corey Brewer went to college, where he's from, and some stuff about his hobbies, but i couldn't pick Charlie Coyle out of a police lineup if he wasn't wearing his jersey.