Speculation: Do you believe it's generally in the best interest of a Player to "Answer The Bell"?

[Betamax*]

The Question in it's wordy entirety:


Do you believe, given the current climate of the NHL, it is generally in the best interest of a Player to "Answer The Bell" i.e. fight when challenged by teammate of a player from the other team when a hit delivered by said player, whether it be clean or otherwise, injures that player from that other team?

I ask this in light of today's game being Zack Kassian's first game against the Oilers since his stick hit Sam Gagner's jaw and broke it after an ill-fated missed hit.

re:



I suspect someone(s) from the Oilers will "challenge" him in tonights game.


Another recent example include the recent Shawn Thornton attack on Brooks Orpik after he declined to engage him previously in a fight.

re:




What's your take on this?

Click to read more...

 

[VeteranNetPresence]

if it's a dirty play that goes uncalled then i think they have the obligation to. in the orpik situation, i feel that his hit on eriksson was clean so there was need for him to fight anyone.

 

[y2kcanucks]

If challenged you should fight. No question.

 

[luongo321]

I don't know. Let's ask Duncan Keith. Oh wait, he viciously assaulted dan sedin and our team has still done nothing about it.

 

[Yammer]

If fighting was harmless (I do not suggest painless) and if accepting the fight was sufficient to remove the 'stain' of having hit another player, then sure, yes.

But then you have to consider Steve Moore.

Moore's hit on Naslund was not penalized. Therefore by the 'clean' principle he was not obliged to fight.

Moore nonetheless accepted Matt Cooke's fight challenge.

And that was not sufficient to remove the stigma of the hit, so Bertuzzi went in for second helpings of punishment, and as it happened, his career.

From this example, answering the bell is pointless and stupid.

 

[Betamax*]

I don't know. Let's ask Duncan Keith. Oh wait, he viciously assaulted dan sedin and our team has still done nothing about it.

Argghh ... that's the one of the few things that irks me about the Canucks. Seriously, I'm not expecting someone like a Sestito to attack him but someone of similar stature and player of great leadership like Kesler to maybe drop the gloves with him. Or maybe Henrik or Daniel himself (after some fight training) ...

 

[thekernel]

No. If your check is clean, let them take an instigator, and score on the powerplay. If you can turn the tide of a game with a play like that, then there is no reason for you to drop the gloves and remove the PP opportunity.

Orpik made the right decision not to fight. People want to blame the victim for not "answering the bell", but if you make a good hit and the opponent seeks out retribution, that's completely their own volition. You should never have to fear for your safety if you make a perfectly legal NHL play, EVER. You know why? This is 2013, hockey has more tactics than ever. If you want to win, you need to achieve every possible advantage and that includes declining fights to get powerplay time.

Now of course, if the hit is illegal and extremely dangerous, you should expect a target on your back, because stepping outside the boundary of the rules to hurt someone is cowardly. If you think dropping the gloves will alleviate their ire, then you should; however it's never proven to be effective.

 

[BoHorvatFan]

yes, kassian better step up and fight gadzic. when you recklessly injure another teams skilled player you better be ready to answer for it.

 

[Verviticus]

fighting has obvious long-term impacts on a player's health and probably shouldn't ever be encouraged. it's like forcing people to smoke

 

[TacitEndorsement]

fighting has obvious long-term impacts on a player's health and probably shouldn't ever be encouraged. it's like forcing people to smoke

Nobody is forcing them to play the sport. They play it knowing the inherent risks.

 

[TacitEndorsement]

If fighting was harmless (I do not suggest painless) and if accepting the fight was sufficient to remove the 'stain' of having hit another player, then sure, yes.

But then you have to consider Steve Moore.

Moore's hit on Naslund was not penalized. Therefore by the 'clean' principle he was not obliged to fight.

Moore nonetheless accepted Matt Cooke's fight challenge.

And that was not sufficient to remove the stigma of the hit, so Bertuzzi went in for second helpings of punishment, and as it happened, his career.

From this example, answering the bell is pointless and stupid.

I think this is a poor example because Bertuzzi crossed the line. I believe he would have done that had Moore fought Cooke or not.

 

[Scurr]

Orpik is a predatory hitter that's out there to hurt people. He should have to fight.

I've fought for every hit I thought was even borderline in my "career". Just because I think a hit I made was clean... doesn't mean it was.

 

[Verviticus]

Nobody is forcing them to play the sport. They play it knowing the inherent risks.

hey thats a cool worthless set of words. here's meaningful ones: fighting has a long term impact on their health and shouldnt be encouraged

 

[How Ya Drouin]

I seem to remember Landeskog rejecting a fight with Lucic.

In that particular situation, that took a lot of maturity and really impressed me.

 

[MikeK]

Best interest? Probably.
Should they have to? Absolutely not.

Unfortunately it probably is in the players best interest if only to help move forward faster and allow everyone to get over it. I don't think a player should have to though. Fighting isn't any fun whether you're on the losing or winning end of the result. I don't have any ill feelings toward a person for choosing not to fight. What I do wish is that the NHL and the officials would do a better job at managing the game and player actions on the ice so that this stupid unwritten rule can die with the rest of the old school thinking.

 

[BoHorvatFan]

Sam Gagner didn't have a ''choice'' whether he would have his jaw broken with a horribly painful series of surgeries and recover eating through a straw. Why should Kassian even have a choice, it was a stupid play and I'd expect any team in the league to get back at him in some way, a clean fight seems like the best option for everyone involved.

You can't go around hurting people with reckless plays then say, ''I don't wanna fight cause i might get hurt''

 

[Pip]

fighting has obvious long-term impacts on a player's health and probably shouldn't ever be encouraged. it's like forcing people to smoke

No, its's like paying people to smoke. The people are well aware of the risks, but value getting paid more.

I don't know. Let's ask Duncan Keith. Oh wait, he viciously assaulted dan sedin and our team has still done nothing about it.

I remember a few Canucks challenging him to a fight, and he wouldn't go. Should we have Bertuzzi'd him? There's simply nothing you can do in that situation.

 

[Jay Cee]

To answer the question, definitely.

I don't buy the argument at all that "it was a clean hit". People get too hung up with clean vs dirty. It is not as important as if someone was trying to hurt one of your star players. They have to answer for that and people usually end up doing stupid **** to get even with them if they don't.

 

[TacitEndorsement]

hey thats a cool worthless set of words. here's meaningful ones: fighting has a long term impact on their health and shouldnt be encouraged

Consider this, CBC polled 318 NHL players and 98% of them did not want to ban fighting. It seems like they don't need any encouragement from us.

Moving forward with the precedent that the players want fighting to exist, therefore it's going to exist, any players should know the inherent risks of the game.

That basically justifies my set of words.

 

[Pip]

hey thats a cool worthless set of words. here's meaningful ones: fighting has a long term impact on their health and shouldnt be encouraged

Lol. No one if forcing these guys to become fighters, most guys maks a concious decision to become a fighter once they realize that they'll never be good enough for the NHL.

People are allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies, who are you to say they can't fight?

 

[Verviticus]

Lol. No one if forcing these guys to become fighters, most guys maks a concious decision to become a fighter once they realize that they'll never be good enough for the NHL.

People are allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies, who are you to say they can't fight?

odjick was pretty happy to fight. now he's a shell of a human being who cant buy a quality of life better than mine no matter how much he earned. whoops!!!!

fighting is stupid caveman **** that isn't good for the players and isn't actually playing the hockey sport (using sticks to put pucks into nets aka score goals). i really dont care if 100% of players think it's good to have in the game. encouraging it is pretty scummy/immoral imo and trying to use the argument that players are rational actors when the rational actor theory is a pile of ********* is a bad argument

 

[TacitEndorsement]

odjick was pretty happy to fight. now he's a shell of a human being who cant buy a quality of life better than mine no matter how much he earned. whoops!!!!

fighting is stupid caveman **** that isn't good for the players and isn't actually playing the hockey sport (using sticks to put pucks into nets aka score goals). i don't give a **** if 100% of players think it's good to have in the game - it isn't. encouraging it is pretty scummy/immoral imo and trying to use the argument that players are rational actors when the rational actor theory is a pile of ********* is a bad argument

Here's how I feel about Odjick and players like himself.

I don't think the awareness was in place during his era. The concussion protocol was brutal and there wasn't as much evidence as to how destructive sports concussions were to one's quality of life.

I almost liken it to the difference between smoking in the past and smoking in the present. In the past nobody knew how bad smoking was for your health. Doctors, pregnant mothers, people with kids in the car, kids themselves, everybody smoked because they didn't know how bad it was. Now that everyone knows you can hardly blame anyone but the user because the evidence is there, the awareness has come.

The evidence and the awareness have come for sports concussions. Hockey fighters HAVE to be aware of the risks. There's literally no way they can't be informed at this point. If they choose to continue, hey, it's their life.

And you know what, if Jarome Iginla honestly believes it's an important part of the game, I'm willing to believe him. He's the epitome of honesty and integrity and his experience makes his opinion infinitely more valuable than any on this message board. That's just one player I could name.

 

[Verviticus]

the problem with fighting and smoking and really, any repeated chronic damage is that people will take a single event - a cigarette, a punch, whatever - and then are shockingly bad at extrapolating that damage when it happens five hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand times or whatever

like in 25 years when we ask tom sestito who can't stand up without shaking uncontrollably or look at bright lights if it was worth it, ten minutes later when he processes the question he's going to have a different outlook on the situation than now when its obviously worth it to him (because the cost has been like, a black eye and a headache for hundreds of thousands of dollars)

its not just up to the league to inform the players, it's really up to the league to control the situation so its unlikely that players can end up in that situation. unfortunately for people who like fighting, the end game is that it doesn't exist, because until that point the league really is't able to say that participation is safe and doesn't have expected long-term consequences

jarome iginla might be super honest and fair but he might not be super insightful or bright and his experiences, honest as they are, are probably not more valuable than the repeated controlled studies on the issue

edit: I mean there have been studies that show explicitly that people are not even good at gauging reward now vs reward later when it comes to money expressed in raw, understandable numbers, let alone in abstract concepts like health, quality of life and so on

 

[Canucker]

Orpik is a predatory hitter that's out there to hurt people. He should have to fight.

I've fought for every hit I thought was even borderline in my "career". Just because I think a hit I made was clean... doesn't mean it was.

Hits are meant to hurt...you shouldn't have to fight because you hit someone hard and it hurt them.

 

[Canucker]

Here's how I feel about Odjick and players like himself.

I don't think the awareness was in place during his era. The concussion protocol was brutal and there wasn't as much evidence as to how destructive sports concussions were to one's quality of life.

I almost liken it to the difference between smoking in the past and smoking in the present. In the past nobody knew how bad smoking was for your health. Doctors, pregnant mothers, people with kids in the car, kids themselves, everybody smoked because they didn't know how bad it was. Now that everyone knows you can hardly blame anyone but the user because the evidence is there, the awareness has come.

The evidence and the awareness have come for sports concussions. Hockey fighters HAVE to be aware of the risks. There's literally no way they can't be informed at this point. If they choose to continue, hey, it's their life.

And you know what, if Jarome Iginla honestly believes it's an important part of the game, I'm willing to believe him. He's the epitome of honesty and integrity and his experience makes his opinion infinitely more valuable than any on this message board. That's just one player I could name.

And Jarome Iginla is also a member of a union that has fighters as members, and if he were to speak out against them he would be speaking against a lot of people who he likely considers friends and union brothers. You won't find too many current players who are willing to speak out against fighting.