Where do you see fighting/hitting in the future?

[Canadiens1958]

Removal of the center Red Line for offsides at the youth developmental level around 2005-06 has changed the flow and lanes of the the game.

The hits in the NHL and CHL reflect this.

Ian Cole is a prime example. 2007 draftee, learned under the offside center Red Line where it was possible to come across without being exploited in the future:

ian cole hit - YouTube

Gryba on Beaulieu was similar in many regards.

Jeff O'Neill is a throwback to the real old lanes and flow.

 

[JETZZZ]

you do any of that, you will reap what you sow. baseball players, of all the pro athletes, have the longest memories.

the players, past and present, don't care one bit if protecting a teamate gets YOUR panties in a bunch. They are not doing it for you.

don't understand it ? watch more games. Don't like it ? turn your head.

easy peasy

Not sure i understand what you are tying to say. Is encouraging more fighting in baseball good? bad? Any other sports that should adopt an enforcer dimension to their game?

 

[sandysan]

Not sure i understand what you are tying to say. Is encouraging more fighting in baseball good? bad? Any other sports that should adopt an enforcer dimension to their game?

don't care what other sports do.

but baseball most certainly has ways for players to protect teamates. by plunkage, and those beefs never go away until the ledger is settled.

if guys want to settle scores because they think that collectively it makes them safer in agregate, that you disagree is moot until you lace em up tight.

but if other leagues wanted to let players square off and have a consentual go, it wouldn't bother me in the least. that's 100% better than scores being settled the way they do in the NBA, the NFL and MLB where guys get to pretend like they want to fight, but know full well that its never going to go that far.

two guys looking each other in the eyes, consenting to go is always preferable to melee's where "tough guys" take liberties and sucker people.

 

[vandymeer13]

I hope the nhl and ahl come back to there senses. I think the echl and sphl need it to survive. The juniors league don't pay there players squat and some not at all and get money from the nhl to survive. I don't know how anyone can prefer todays product over 10 years ago or in the 80s when Gretzky played. I don't want to see 4th lines and bottom pairing dmen that can just skate well and try not to get scored on.
A bunch of new nhl preach about the skill is able to be shown. You've always had that, it's not like all of a sudden we have all this more tremendous skill on the ice. But we have lost the excitement that comes with fighting and rivalries.

 

[Big Phil]

You know the funny thing is, it wasn't that long ago that the NHL seemed to be behind the idea of telling someone bringing a lawsuit in to take a hike. No one wanted that in the game. I would say even in, say, 2007 the majority still thought that a player that got drilled was at fault because his head wasn't up. This is still true to this day, except no one says it anymore. Heck, you've even got Eric "Bonnie and Carl" Lindros openly talking about the hope that the NHL turns into a no-hitting league. Literally. No joke. Eric Lindros. THAT Eric Lindros.

And by the way, everyone on here who hated "staged" fights only decided this when the media came up with that term. Trust me, you LOVED staged fights back in the day, because there were lots of them, they happened as long as their was dirt on the ground. You just weren't being told what to love and what not to love.

 

[Cams]

You know the funny thing is, it wasn't that long ago that the NHL seemed to be behind the idea of telling someone bringing a lawsuit in to take a hike. No one wanted that in the game. I would say even in, say, 2007 the majority still thought that a player that got drilled was at fault because his head wasn't up. This is still true to this day, except no one says it anymore. Heck, you've even got Eric "Bonnie and Carl" Lindros openly talking about the hope that the NHL turns into a no-hitting league. Literally. No joke. Eric Lindros. THAT Eric Lindros.

And by the way, everyone on here who hated "staged" fights only decided this when the media came up with that term. Trust me, you LOVED staged fights back in the day, because there were lots of them, they happened as long as their was dirt on the ground. You just weren't being told what to love and what not to love.

re: staged fights. I had no problem with it, but teams are built now where there is no room for a Colton Orr, John Scott, Dave Brown, Koci, Belak, etc. on their rosters. The game has evolved to a more skill, fast paced game. I'm someone who grew up with hockey (playing and watching) in the '80s, '90s...... I wouldn't ever watch it just for the fights...that's not hockey. I have no use for LNAH type league that just employs unskilled plugs who just fight as the base of their league. Fighting will never come back like it was....I remember the days when every team had at least one 200PIM player, but those 4th line, 6/7 Dmen players would never be able to keep the pace up with todays game. I was a season ticket holder for Windsor (OHL) for over 20 years, and the OHL of the 90s was crazy. Throughout the late '80s, '90s and early 2000's Windsor always one of, if not THE, toughest teams and fighters, but again....the game has evolved. Some of the craziness Windsor had in games...especially rivals like London, Plymouth, Sarnia...... I remember playoff series against Plymouth Whalers in the back to back Memorial Cup years.....it seemed there was 5, 6 fights every playoff game. Game is out of hand and you got consecutive fights off the draw. After a while this got ridiculous. It was more "Oh great..here we go again", than excitement. I even remember a game when Cam Janssen played here. There was about 4 or more days of hype for 1 fight!!!!! Media talked about it, etc.

I think it would nice for the NHL to schedule more home and home games. I remember the Friday night Toronto in Detroit, Saturday back in Toronto, or Tor @ Buf on Friday, next night in Tor. That stoked rivalries, but still......it wouldn't change much with today's game. There is no more Orr - Clarkson, Orr - Scott. That being said....if the top league isn't using these kinds of players any more it just makes sense for the development leagues to follow suit.

Also...long gone are the days when you had a team down by 3 or 4 goals late in the game and then it was fighting time. Heck..this made for 3 hour plus games some nights. I certainly don't miss it. There was no point to it.

 

[gstommylee]

fighting/hitting aren't going anywhere.

 

[turkleton85]

in the red wings - avalanche and the red wings - bruins games there were finally some emotions and some hate (thanks marchand) involved, and guys standing up for each other. I don't mind if fights are rarely happening at the current level. Designated fighters were just lame....but if there's some passion and guys have each others backs, it's much more valuable than just goonery

 

[Big Phil]

fighting/hitting aren't going anywhere.

I'd like to agree with you because they are part and parcel of what makes the game so great and unique. I am just worried that, say, the millennial generation coming up will have the whole PC mentality and help turn the game into nothing more than passionless pond hockey. I'm trying to see how this can be avoided.

 

[Fenian24]

I am hoping they make a comeback and hockey has some passion in it again but I think the NHL finally has what it wants, a watered down PC game for the media and soccer mom's in Iowa. I don't watch nearly as much as I used to and find the current game boring and only getting worse, granted I am a Bruins fan and Sweeney has ruined this team.

 

[Big Phil]

I am hoping they make a comeback and hockey has some passion in it again but I think the NHL finally has what it wants, a watered down PC game for the media and soccer mom's in Iowa. I don't watch nearly as much as I used to and find the current game boring and only getting worse, granted I am a Bruins fan and Sweeney has ruined this team.

At least your team almost ignited a goalie brawl from the other night. That was pretty fun to watch even if it didn't quite materialize.

 

[Big Phil]

The passion, fighting, and hitting in hockey is trending downwards. But, I don't think it will be like that forever, like a previous poster says once the heat from the CTE lawsuits cools off, people get paid, or something, then we'll see the NHL relax on the suspensions and fines for dirty hits IMO. Then we'll see it trend back up, but probably never to the point of a Stevens-Kariya hit being legal.

I see more of it.

Can either of you explain why you think this will happen................

I am failing to see how the trend will go upwards. Unless rivalries become a thing again (I hope they do).

 

[Beukeboom]

And by the way, everyone on here who hated "staged" fights only decided this when the media came up with that term. Trust me, you LOVED staged fights back in the day, because there were lots of them, they happened as long as their was dirt on the ground. You just weren't being told what to love and what not to love.

I loved staged fights. But there are two things to this. First off the "goons" were in most cases better players when I started watching. I mean Probert was an All Star and Domi/Odgers/Brown and similar guys could play. Chris Simon, for instance, had a 29 goal season. Somewhere along the line the league got faster while the new enforcers got worse. I mean let's just say the difference between Colton Orr and Probert is not primarily in punching power. So given how many tough guys that could play back then NHL should be able to find them nowadays too. Maybe it's because big guys don't drop em anymore and focus on skills from a young age. My point is the enforcers have to be able to contribute at a "soft forth line euro" rate. WHich would be around 15 points at least.

Second of all, if the staged fights come at a cost of driving fighting out of the league, then I'm not against them slowly being faced out. Because to be honest it has calmed down a bit around fighting now that NHL can claim there are no goons left. But this is only as long as the heated "spontaneous" fights are still there on a frequent basis and there are very tough power forwards a la Terry O'Reilly. We unfortunately know that is not the case now.

 

[tapi]

Bring back 1988

 

[Get North]

Can either of you explain why you think this will happen................

I am failing to see how the trend will go upwards. Unless rivalries become a thing again (I hope they do).

I just don't see it getting any lower. Maybe the refs will feel less pressure from the league after the CTE lawsuit being settled to stop hitting and let more dirty hits go uncalled, which will push fighting and hitting back up? That's my thinking and hope.

 

[Big Phil]

I just don't see it getting any lower. Maybe the refs will feel less pressure from the league after the CTE lawsuit being settled to stop hitting and let more dirty hits go uncalled, which will push fighting and hitting back up? That's my thinking and hope.

The Leafs/Bruins game the other night was epic. Three fights in the game, some physical play that led to the fighting, two teams that hated each other and lots of goals. I thought it was 1990.

 

[GBHockey]

Even here in the UK's EIHL, fighting seems to be fading quickly. There's been a fair few fights this season so far but the number of cheap shots is also rising significantly.

I attended a game last night, Nottingham vs. Manchester. There was a moment towards the end of the game which was 4-2 to Manchester, where a Manchester player lightly suckered a Nottingham player and then hooked/slashed the next nearest Nottingham player who gave him some verbals. Last week, they also played each other and the player responsible for last nights antics also borderline assaulted a Nottingham player (Alexandre Bolduc, former Canuck). They exchanged slashes and then the Manchester player dropped the gloves and threw 3 punches, all landed but the Nottingham player didn't go down and didn't fight back. I was furious. To let a guy constantly cheap shot and bully guys, without anybody standing up for their teammates is just ridiculous. Go back 2 or 3 years when there was Janssen and McGrattan in Nottingham and the Manchester player would likely have left in an ambulance, and rightly so.

For anyone who is curious, the Manchester player is Linden Springer (Former WHL/USports, permanent plug)

I don't want to see fights every game or needless roughing but seeing cheapshots go unanswered just does not sit right with me.

 

[GBHockey]

In addition to the above, two of the toughest guys in the EIHL have both been released in the last couple weeks.

Jacob Doty left Nottingham to return to the ECHL. He was always offering guys out but nobody wanted to know.

Josh Gratton has been released by Glasgow today, rumours he was unhappy and he too struggled to find a fight but he seemed a lot more disinterested in fighting than Doty.

 

[Blue Regime]

Stealing from a certain Canadian psychologist, hockey (as well as many other things in life) is at its best when straddling the line between order and chaos. Too much of either, though, is a bad thing. In this case, order is the finesse brand of hockey with fast skating, lots of goals, but no physicality or grittiness, while chaos is the thuggish brand of hockey filled with fights, animosity, big hits, but also cheap shots, injuries, and goonery.

I became a hockey fan in the late 90's. Looking only from then until now, the first years if my fanhood were when the game was at "peak chaos". It was the era of giant D-men, the trap, roid rage, and some of the best rivalries ever seen, but at the cost of the game being slow and the playoffs turning into a contest to see who could injure the other teams' skill players the fastest. I would watch the occasional regular season game, network games if it was a good rivalry, and the playoffs. This brand of hockey persisted roughly until the lockout, at which point the pendulum began swinging towards order.

The post-lockout seasons were, IMO, when the NHL was at its best. The game seemed to have a little bit of everything, including the occasional "old-time hockey" game mixed in maybe once or twice per season. My interest peaked around the 2011 SCF, when you had two teams with completely different identities - one based on order, one based on chaos - going at it while hating each other's guts. Even though the "chaos" team won that series, in the seasons that followed more and more teams shifted to the "order" style of finesse hockey.

This shift has continued to this day, and I think we are at or are approaching "peak order" hockey. Personally, my interest in the NHL is as low as it's ever been. I will browse the occasional Youtube highlights video and will watch a couple playoff games, maybe an occasional period or two of a regular season game. I did watch the Isles' first game back at the Coliseum, which was played with a lot of emotion and admittedly pretty good. But I don't see my interest changing back to what it was anytime soon.

There are many things one can blame - concussions, too many suspensions, the NHL trying to attract "casual" fans (every casual fan I know loves physical hockey), the blue collar fans being priced out of the arena, PC culture, lack of people taking steroids, the increased player salaries, etc etc. All I know is if I am in the mood for passionless sports entertainment, I will choose golf every time. In the meantime, I get my hockey fix from the NCAA.

I don't need bench-clearing brawls, bone-crunching hits and the chaos kind of hockey from when I first started watching. It doesn't even need to be fights... a little emotion is all I ask (although I do believe fights are a bellwether, so-to-speak, of how emotional the games are).

I do think the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. The NHL ultimately needs our money and attention to survive, and there's a lot of pissed off fans out there. The main selling point hockey has over soccer is its physicality, when the NHL recognizes this in 10 years, things will change. Money talks.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Enforcers sucked. Concussions suck. Players are faster and stronger, more is known now- we aren't going back. Sorry, but your desire to see blood doesn't trump someone else's desire not to poop in a bag and drool on themselves for the rest of their lives.

I think fighting will live on, and hopefully in a good way. There's still plenty of passion, and passions will boil over- I'd rather see honest fights than staged sideshows. I wish it'd happen more often, but if things swing too much to the soft skilled side of things I'd think some Neal/Iginla types would make a resurgence and put the league on notice.

Hitting.. can be tricky. For an example, I think Wilson's preseason hit is a prime example of what O'Neill is talking about. The play happened so fast, how's he supposed to react to the other player leaning head first at shoulder height all of a sudden? I guess I'd just argue leniency on repeat offenders when it's a case like that- it's what Wilson does, he plays on edge, and he'll accidentally step over from time to time. I think players need to make a habit of just getting lower, throwing more hip checks, etc. That's a rough habit to learn, it feels unnatural, but between my right to hit comfortably and your right to be able to sit in a room with the lights on without a headache- I understand why the league is getting rid of headshots.

Final note- I've always been an advocate of "keep your head up!" but some of these hits can't be solved by that. Neil on Drury, Richards on Booth, Cooke on Savard, there's plenty more- blindsides are just cheap, and other times a guy can be pretty heads up and just not see someone coming around the net, another player, etc. It's just not the answer some people want it to be, and to avoid former players forgetting their own names.. seems an issue worth working on imo.

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

The Leafs/Bruins game the other night was epic. Three fights in the game, some physical play that led to the fighting, two teams that hated each other and lots of goals. I thought it was 1990.

I thought it was 2015 again. How times have changed, much for the worse. Thank you NHL.... they want players to be social media friends and just collecting a paycheck these days. Emotion and passion are very, very rare.

 

[Big Phil]

I thought it was 2015 again. How times have changed, much for the worse. Thank you NHL.... they want players to be social media friends and just collecting a paycheck these days. Emotion and passion are very, very rare.

Maybe they'll make a comeback? Maybe the 2019 playoffs will prove to be a hate-filled grind of animosity.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Fighting will be eradicated - like it is in virtually every other sport.

Hitting will stay.

 

[vandymeer13]

re: staged fights. I had no problem with it, but teams are built now where there is no room for a Colton Orr, John Scott, Dave Brown, Koci, Belak, etc. on their rosters. The game has evolved to a more skill, fast paced game. I'm someone who grew up with hockey (playing and watching) in the '80s, '90s...... I wouldn't ever watch it just for the fights...that's not hockey. I have no use for LNAH type league that just employs unskilled plugs who just fight as the base of their league. Fighting will never come back like it was....I remember the days when every team had at least one 200PIM player, but those 4th line, 6/7 Dmen players would never be able to keep the pace up with todays game. I was a season ticket holder for Windsor (OHL) for over 20 years, and the OHL of the 90s was crazy. Throughout the late '80s, '90s and early 2000's Windsor always one of, if not THE, toughest teams and fighters, but again....the game has evolved. Some of the craziness Windsor had in games...especially rivals like London, Plymouth, Sarnia...... I remember playoff series against Plymouth Whalers in the back to back Memorial Cup years.....it seemed there was 5, 6 fights every playoff game. Game is out of hand and you got consecutive fights off the draw. After a while this got ridiculous. It was more "Oh great..here we go again", than excitement. I even remember a game when Cam Janssen played here. There was about 4 or more days of hype for 1 fight!!!!! Media talked about it, etc.

I think it would nice for the NHL to schedule more home and home games. I remember the Friday night Toronto in Detroit, Saturday back in Toronto, or Tor @ Buf on Friday, next night in Tor. That stoked rivalries, but still......it wouldn't change much with today's game. There is no more Orr - Clarkson, Orr - Scott. That being said....if the top league isn't using these kinds of players any more it just makes sense for the development leagues to follow suit.

Also...long gone are the days when you had a team down by 3 or 4 goals late in the game and then it was fighting time. Heck..this made for 3 hour plus games some nights. I certainly don't miss it. There was no point to it.

Blowouts is when it's time to fight and settle scores. Me and my friends would always hope the score would get out of hand to see some fireworks.
People complain when players fight when the score is close and now when it's out of hand.
It gives you a reason to stay til the end of the game or keep watching it on tv. If you don't want to watch it leave it turn the channel no big deal.

 

[cliffclaven]

Fighting will be eradicated - like it is in virtually every other sport.

Hitting will stay.

A) yes it will
B) no it won’t. Hits are gone already. For soccer moms and ‘fans’ like you.