OK, so I love sports. Specifically football and basketball, but really, I'll have SportCenter as my "white noise" as easily as I'll have E! News or the Sirius "90's on 9" channel.
Anyway, ProMo and I were at our Thursday night happy hour enjoying our beer, wing tidbits and pizza, and watching sports on approximately 10 different televisions. One of the big stories of the day that we kept seeing on the Highlights was the fight between the goalies for the Pittsburgh Penguins and whoever they were playing. [Since I don't follow hockey, I don't know what their names are nor who the opponent was, but that's fairly irrelevant.]
Let me set the scene for you: there's a standard hockey fight going on. It starts with a couple of guys then maybe a couple more get in on it. Refs are hanging out, doing whatever it is that hockey refs do when a fight is started...which is pretty much stand there and watch the fight happen and wait for it to run its course. Then, the Penguins' goalie somewhat casually skates over the the other goalie. Ref tries to stop him, Penguins' goalie pushes ref out of the way, brawl ensues. Apparently, goalie fights are so rare that ESPN felt the need to put together a video montage of the best goalie fights of all time. Fine.
My question is, why is it not only OK but really, EXPECTED, that there will be a fight in hockey but it is so completely unacceptable in every other sport (except those based in fighting like boxing, of course). Football and basketball players who get in fights get fined, suspended, or both. What do they get in hockey? A 10 minute penalty? Seriously?
I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong, but where did that disparity come in and why?
Cheap shots and smack talk are the perfect ingredients for a brawl that we as viewers anticipate throughout the entire game. With a sport that is already violent with its slamming and hitting of players, I think fighting has become a cultural norm within the Hockey world. However, I don't think fighting is necessarily encouraged in the sport, and in serious cases, players are suspended from the game and fined by the NHL. However, because the sport is on ice, it makes it a little more difficult and dangerous for situations to be diffused. A player who is fighting in a football game is on stable ground, and is also surrounded by a number of officials who usually will break it up. However, in the small number of cases when a referee in Hockey has had the guts to try to mediate a brawl, they usually are the ones knocked out. Therefore, it is not so much a case of the NHL not caring about fighting, it is a matter of safety and what the officials are capable of controlling between two 220 pound players having a temper tantrum.
ReplyDeleteDoug, I love how your post is both a stream of consciousness and very informative at the same time! :)
ReplyDeleteI know I will get shot for saying this but hockey brawls are one way to distinguish the sport from another one performed on ice :-) Figure Skating!
ReplyDeleteHAHA - nice, Leo!
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