If there is a big hit in a game you better believe it will be brought up....
I think therein lies the issue, a "big hit", for this fan, does not automatically have me feel a guy is a tough player. Now, it`s definitely part of what constitutes being or playing tough but being a guy who is consistently out there laying out opponents alone doesn`t mean that player is tough.
Same goes for fisticuffs, another aspect but not the key for me to identify a guy as being tough.
Brief story, I was a barely above average player during the days where I didn`t have grey hair, moved from Oakville back to Ottawa and was at the tryouts for the AA team, as many know here, there`s as much politics at the amateur level as with higher one`s and the lineup that was expected to be chosen, as I found out after, seemed well established and I was likely to be cut and off to A level.
I wound up making the team and the coaches spoke with each player individually after the cuts were made and this coach ( Paterson ,can`t recall first name) but his son Mark had a cup of coffee in the NHL said THE reason he was cutting player X who had been part of the team the year previous in favor of me was that in spite of my lack of natural skill and lack of size, I played each shift hard, played responsible and while I was nothing close to being a bruiser, I planted my arse in front of the opponents net and drove them nutso but he said what solidified it was during a little pre-season game, I dropped down and blocked a shot with little to no time left and he said that was what convinced he and the other coaches I`d be a guy they could put in the lineup.
It`s that sort of thing that I love watching from players, yep, drives me nuts when I see a Gallagher from the Habs do it but the guy is tough as nails in the sense that he NEVER hesitates to go to the front of the net, in the corners and muck it up, that`s toughness to me, there are plenty of guys on the B`s who aren`t 6`5 but that doesn`t mean they can`t play tougher but the problem with toughness, IMO, is you can`t teach it, a player either has it within himself or he doesn`t.