What is the year-end for that? It can't be June..

Fair enough. Everything I know about San Francisco, I learned from watching Full House.

Uncle Joey, diehard Wangz fan ldo

Bob: At the NHL level, fighting has not dropped at a constant rate at all. It's been going down, but it had gone up. I do not think that enforcers are dinosaurs. The AHL has seen less fighting because teams have too many players because of the lockout, they're not wasting a space on an enforcer. But the NHL will still demand fighters as it is now, so someone will have to supply them.

Triumph, been seeing a lot of the same usual suspects around the A AND they're dressing. But they're simply not going at it as much. Granted, my sample is limited to my one team. But usually October is goon-fest fight-time right to my very first game in this league which was two legit fights going at the same time. And we do happen to have two players who have been top two in PIM'S in previous years for the whole league. The game continues to change.

I do still think it is lockout related somewhat also though. They're playing for real. Nobody wants to get in a war where they are headhunting after each others' valuable stars who aren't even supposed to be here in the first place. Then again, I saw one of those stars absolutely crushed from behind after the whistle when he was standing around doing nothing. So we will see how it all progresses as this continues.

The fighting at the nhl level is one aspect...but there are different types of fights. Two enforcers agreeing to do it with not much in the game relating to it doesn't happen as much. Enforcers guys who played their three minutes a game will tell you it is rarer now than five years ago....including the guy I interviewed recently. fighting that has some amount of context to the game itself and guys getting all bothered over a legal hit and turning that into a mandatory challenge now are changing a bit too.

And then...you get something like Flyers vs. Penguins which does kind of run contrary to that...so...umm.yeah.

Well, that's just it - that's what the game really eliminated. These guys who racked up 300+ PIMs didn't just do it from fighting, they got game misconducts and 10 minute misconducts. You can't just go around starting fights at the end of games anymore, which is probably good.

http://www.hockeyfights.com/stats/

is a good resource.

I read once about a species of deer who died out because their horns, which were used to select mates, became unwieldy and awkward for everything else. That's sort of what's happened to enforcers - everyone else is getting better at hockey, and they are getting worse. It's such a strange evolution.

triumph - I believe the deer analogy is what the enforcer guy I interviewed was referring to when he said "dinosaurs."

But even the guys who sort of play (more than 3 minutes) and rack up big PIM numbers are not as common.

bob: dinosaurs are a common phrase for something that's extinct or outmoded, but i think what i was getting at was more descriptive of how the NHL selected for bigger and bigger players who got worse and worse at hockey. you wouldn't've seen a steve mckenna or david koci in the league 30 years ago.

but now the NHL has gotten serious about on-ice policing via discipline - that's really what might put them out of business. used to be you wanted a guy like that to 'keep the peace'. post-todd bertuzzi, the league has slowly come to realize that on-ice discipline can be quite dangerous. and i know people who yammer on about how great hockey was in 1988 lament this fact, but the NHL has gotten rid of serious stick fouls. it's not going to get rid of boarding, but open ice hits? maybe. and it's showing that it's serious about changing repeat offenders like raffi torres and matt cooke. so that kind of behavior won't be tolerated in the lower leagues, either.

I'll tell the enforcer guy that he would have been more accurate to refer to the enforcers as "deer with horns" instead of "dinosaurs." Will report back his response.

jesus christ. bob that is not what i was talking about at all. i don't care about his word choice.

true

was watching the Sportsnet guys interview Chris Nilan the other day and they asked him if he knew how many fights he had, he didn't. they then tried to estimate based on how many PIM's he had, and guess something like 500-600. meanwhile their stat guy looked it up and it was like ~200, lol.

That image that evidently didn't post was "Whoa. Dude, chill."

Triumph, I was just making a funny. Never expected you to get upset by that post. Not sure where that came from.

I thought the idea of me going to an nhl enforcer and explaining the deer thing was funny. Get it? Haha?

estimating career fights by pims / 5 is borderline ****** behaviour.

Khl had mic'ed up Mirasty durin his recent bout with Gillies. He first seemed to refuse to fight, which is weird because why else would he be on the ice, but they dropped the gloves anyway. Procceds to get tko'ed, but yelled at Gillies for a rematch. Gillies replies, "let me get a couple of shifts in first". Yeah, they are dinosaurs, but they would welcome the chance to play 3+ mins.

ETA: Both play just about 3-4 mins. I just don't think thy discourages fighting that much. Maybe once the clubs wise up and try to win the games.

xposted from the Drafted thread, but sorta related here, Biznasty talking about that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VignUSJjGmY#t=12m

but the fact is, it's not really +EV to play most, or all, of these types for more than 5 mpg

C'mon mang. I'm not watching all that to get a 30 second sound bite.

all what? i linked it to the relevant point of the interview where he talks about his role as a hockey player for a minute or two, you can watch as much or little as you want

Ahhh, I'm on my phone and it doesn't jump ahead.

Biznasty signing with my local team has made this whole lockout worth it. Wonder what his reaction will be to the fact the Devils play in a 3k capacity big tent thing for an arena and to get to the changing rooms, you have to walk past where the crowd can stand

The tent thing I'm not really sure because that sounds kinda weird. But walking past fans to get to locker room is not unlike a couple of the places in the ECHL where he used to play for a couple of years. He's not THAT far removed from low minors. won't be a big deal. Just not the sweet life of the NHL, obviously

Nhl regs getting feisty. This lockout is fraying some nerves. It'll be WWIII if negotiations stay south. Whitegoose is Mussollini, Geddy is the Soviet bear Wojtek that carried ammo to the front lines and loved to drink beer.

Hey now, Wojtek is a Polish name.

I'm no gutless Commie pizda, c'mon man.

(You got the rest of the description right though)

Um...