Lethal! En, forcers! Player one! *bang*

[prog]

Today's Wikipedia featured article is about fighting in hockey and I read the whole thing. I found it fascinating because I grew up in a hockey-loving house (by virtue of my brother Peter being in it) and watched and enjoyed countless Bruins games on television, and then went on to a hockey college and couldn't help but follow all our boys' (and, separately but lesserly, ladies') exploits there, and still I had no concept at all until now of NHL teams having unofficial "enforcer" players who protect the smaller players, punish perceived transgressions, and generally only fight with other enforcers. This is apparently a tradition far older than I.

I haven't followed or even thought much about hockey in years, and now it all seems rather bizarre for the reason the article states, that there's no other professional team sport in the western world that tolerates and even encourages on-field pugilistics like North American hockey. When I was a kid it seemed as natural as anything but now it strikes me as the output of unregulated testosterone poisoning, and simply distasteful. The purposeful and oddly abstract tackles and collisions in American football is just as physical but a hundred times more nuanced. (As is the checking and such in hockey, sure.)

(Subject line is what the arcade machine "Lethal Enforcers" would say when you put a quarter in and then started a one-player game, and otherwise has nothing to do with anything.)

Comments

In defense of hockey fights

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Hockey fights, which by and large leave the participants drained but not too injured (compared, say, to a career-ending hip-check to the knees or a slash that breaks a hand or skull), are to me an acceptable, codified outlet for frustration. Ritualized combat has long been used to provide an escape valve for the inevitable friction and aggression that builds up in a competitive, physical sport. Having two nominees from the teams square off lets everyone get over it and get back to the game.

It also allows the players themselves choose what infractions are worth fighting over, allowing a measure of self-policing. As you note, enforcers protect other players. In "today's" NHL it's rare to see single-role enforcers any more, but there are clearly players whose skills are second-rate but whose presence on the ice makes the team better overall.

I really like hockey fights for these reasons. Watching football players get so frustrated they commit serious infractions (or worse, take it off the field and out on girlfriends, fans, etc.) is frustrating for me, the observer. Pump people up on testosterone and adrenaline, and expect them to behave 100% rationally? Seems unrealistic. Sports like baseball, with their passive-aggressive brushbacks, glares, and mound-charging, pussy-foot around the issue.

There is a near miraculous transformation in attitudes after a 'good' fight, and by that I mean in almost any arena. Watching, e.g., UFC, two fighters who legitimately hate each other will, after 15 minutes of pounding the crap out of one another, garner a respect and cameraderie hard to achieve otherwise. Grudge matches that end up with neither participant dead can really settle grudges; it's kind of weird. (And this isn't kayfabe; I work with a UFC fighter, who gives me the inside scoop from time to time.) Doesn't always happen -- sometimes a fight leads to another -- but when it does it can be very dramatic.

Re: In defense of hockey fights

[prog.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting insight!

My default stance on "I do [abstractly or controlled violent thing] to blow off steam so I don't commit real violence" is somewhere between skepticism and "Uh, sorry, but that makes you scary". OTOH I usually hear this out of the mouths of violent video game fans, which is not at all the same context.

Re: In defense of hockey fights

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

By the way, I completely used the wrong icon for that post.

Re: In defense of hockey fights

[prog.livejournal.com]

Heheh... also I didn't know that the Bruins logo was a reference to Boston being "The Hub" until I moved back to Boston this decade.

[xach.livejournal.com]

Fighting in high school and college hockey is much more harshly penalized than in the NHL. It's also impractical, since most if not all school athletic hockey leagues in college and below mandate full face masks.

[prog.livejournal.com]

It's funny, but while I was a local fan I didn't know about the explicit ban on fighting in NCAA hockey, and I don't think I ever really noticed its absence.

[dictator555.livejournal.com]

As you know, my knowledge of sports is highly limited on account of them being pretty boring to me. However, I did go to a Bruins game with Nate and found it to be the most interesting sports event I've ever been to. (And I've been to Red Sox, Celtics, etc games. Boring!) But the fighting was kind of cool and interesting and no one really got hurt. I dunno. Seems like there are worse things.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yes, hockey is definitely the funnest mainstream sport to watch, at a wholly objective level (otherwise I think I like watching baseball a little more, for its mystique). It has the continuous action of soccer, except it has the novelty of being on ice, and all performed in a more compact space that means more scoring and more physical play in between the scoring. And yeah, fightin'.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

The junior A team where I grew up had a boxing coach. They never lost a fight. They never won a game.

Fighting in hockey is pure testosterone poisoning. Monkey chest thumping indulged in by losers and cheered on by even bigger losers.