The Responsibility Project^®. Exploring what it means to do the right thing

Responsible Sporting: Contact Ice Hockey

65 Comments

February 10, 2009 by Kathy McManus

65 Comments

What do you think? Leave a comment

• February 11, 2009 by Guy

  Hockey has been a sport of physical contact since its beginning. If you put any limitations on the game you change the game. You may as well tell boxers not to hit so hard!

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  • April 14, 2009 by Mats Schram

    i find fighting in the NHL completely 'game'. I mean, fighting has been a part of hockey since the creation of the sport itself. Not to mention the large audience it attracts, which results in an increased revenue. And before you all continue to rant about how, "assaulting another on the street is illegal, why should it be legal on the ice?" Let's not forget this is a controlled fight and it is all understood as a part of a tense, heated game. The players know what their getting into, hardly does a fight occur in which only one participant has the desire to fight the other, both participants make a conscious decision to engage one another. Don't you think the players would boycott the idea of fighting in the NHL should they dislike it? Let's not change the sport of hockey, it's done well so far, is still doing well, why change it?

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  • August 29, 2010 by Michael H

    Why don't you take your responsibility to another sport? Have you ever played the game? I bet you are one of those Maryo Lemieux types who cried everytime someone touched him!! Take fighting out of the game, and head injuries will increase by a wide margin. Stick infractions will rampent, and more marque players will be serving suspensions because they will have not have a phyciscal presense to protect them.

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  • September 19, 2011 by me

    yea buddy hockey fights are a great part of the game they are not used just to take anger out on a player but to pump up your team as well.

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• February 12, 2009 by Ann

  Throwing Christians to the lions was good sport at one time too. At some point, unless you want to make hockey a good way of population control, you have to realize stupid cannot trump ethical and put controls on people who cannot control themselves.

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• February 13, 2009 by Hannah

  Hockey wouldn't be hockey without the fights. But we need to recognize that fighting is part of hockey and make sure that the players know how to protect themselves and fight fair. They go on the ice with two very sharp blades on their feet, you should expect a little blood.

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  • April 11, 2009 by Chad Allen Kraus

    That is true.

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• February 13, 2009 by Pasquale Bottiglieri

  As a science teacher, I decided to find ways to make the subject relevant, especially to students who have absolutely no intention of becoming scientists but who do want to think clearly and logically. I proposed that the students, based on our discussion of force, momentum, and other aspects of the science under discussion, describe in detail the amount of force required in a punch to the head with a bare fist that would be required to knock a man down as opposed to kill him, or injure him severely. Naturally, after a long and heated discussion in which the biology of the head, neck and central nervous system came into question, the students realized that they could not come up with a reasonable answer that would cover all situations. As a result, we agreed that a fist fight in the street, surrounded by concrete curbs and other hard objects made the concept of a fist fight even more dangerous. Hockey, like the new gladiatorial offering free style mixed martial arts being offered, is a mega bucks industry. Boxing, which demands the use of padded gloves and incorporates the use of medical staff to stop a fight when a practitioner is seriously injured, also a mega bucks industry, has had deaths due to injuries in the ring. The fact is that serious brain injury and possible death is a high risk in any so called sport that permits and, in the case of hockey, apparently, encourages possibly lethal blows to the head. It might be wise to look into the life long injuries related to professional football also. As long as there are paying customers for Hockey teams that deliberately start and engage in obviously dangerous and de facto lethal hand to hand combat on the ice, there will continue to be fights and resulting injuries. The best way to stop it is to leave the stadium seats empty and the TV on another channel.

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• February 15, 2009 by todd

  We already have a skating sport without fighting. we don't need to change hockey into figure skating. Any sport with that much physical contact there will always be fighting. You can control it but not stop it.to try to stop it may cause larger brawls out in the public sector where innocent bystanders may harmed!

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  • April 7, 2009 by Bob

    Disparaging comments such as the one that likened hockey without fighting to figure skating display a horrible lack of respect for our great sport of hockey. And before anyone thinks this is another comment from someone "who [does]do not know the game or who [has] not played the game," let me note that I play hockey a *minimum* of three times a week (some weeks more often than that) and am also a youth hockey coach (12U/PW). Hockey is obviously a sport that involves a great deal of physical contact, and I will readily shout out from the bench for a player to go for the body in playing defense. Body contact is one of the important skills of the game, just as skating, puck handling, shooting, et cetera. Fighting, however, goes beyond body contact and a poor and irresponsible substitute for the skills of the game. It is an act of intimidation and desperation engaged in by those who do not have the skills to compete in the real game of hockey. One of the things we are taught as coaches to convey to our players is that "Body contact is separating the player from the puck, not the player from the game" (or from consciousness).

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    • February 18, 2010 by Marion Sherman

      I am a great hockey fan and I love the games and watch as many as I can. I watch every night when a game is on.. There are times I would get very upset over seeing a rough fight and the referees stand by watching and not doing anything about it . Today I took time to look up hockey rules and fights. Now I think I understand as it was mentioned it is part of all sports. I just hate to see people get hurt badly.Usually I take a walk to another room until it is stopped depending on how bad they are going at it. I will continue to watch my hockey. I am a women and I was very sporty in school and played in all sports but football. There I was a Majorette loved that also. No fights.

• February 16, 2009 by Guy

  Please allow me to first remove any macho tone from my comment. To fully understand this savage game we called hockey, you must be from a small town just 60 miles north of Duluth, Minnesota called Eveleth, which is where I grew up. Only then you will understand why there’s fighting in hockey. (This city called Eveleth also just happens to be where the US Hockey Hall of Fame is located for those unaware.) What I am really trying to say is people who do not know the game or who have not played the game will always bring the issue to the table on how wrong it is to fight. The funny thing is I bet if the players were to admit it they would probably prefer not to fight and just play hockey. Nevertheless, do not bet your last dollar on that ever happening! Cheers, GMS

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• February 16, 2009 by Pasquale Bottiglieri

  I commented earlier but am interested in this subject for many reasons. First, I participated in football and boxing as a young man and fully understand how tempers can flare in a violent contact sport. I have never played hockey and, honestly, don't understand the game that well. To me, this question has little to do with the game itself or the players. Rather, it has to do with the management of a game in progress by the officials, who are undoubtedly pressured noy only by the events on the ice but by the coaches, most definitely by the owners and, most of all, by the crowd. In my opinion, the object of professional sport is, or at least should be, over and above profit and entertainment, the achievement of physical excellence and mastery of the game. That goal, regardless of the game in question, should be striven for with the health and safety of the players in mind, not at their expense. I worked a a teacher with a man who did very well as a professional football player but who left the game well before his speed and agility left him and he did so without major injury, a goal that should be first and foremost in the mind of any hockey player. Serious injury, and, as we know, death may result from unrestricted bare-fisted blows to the head. It is not the fighting that is in question. It is the managerial, profit driven impetus that is in question, an impetus which affects the crowd, the officials and the players themselves. My statement is that we should, if we enjoy the game, watch all the hockey we want, but, when players lose control and a fight ensues, think more about the possible injury and safety of the players, to say nothing of the example set for young people learning about sport and life, rather than the vicarious adrenaline rush it provides.

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• March 1, 2009 by Micky T.

  The refs stop the fights when they go down to the ice. THAT'S ENOUGH! The players choose to take off their helmets or not! LET 'EM GO!!

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• March 24, 2009 by chris

  OK, if they want to fight let them fight. Tell them it 's at their own risk and by changing a rule it's not cool, because by doing that, they will lose fans and most important, money. Money is every thing . No Money, no hockey. People want to watch hockey by cheering for their team. Remember it is not all the time a team scores a lot of points, so by fights people can get in the game more.

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• April 8, 2009 by Jacquelynn Pate

  Fighting is part of the game of hockey. Most people watch and attend hockey games just to see the fights! I think if you take the fighting out all together, it wouldn't be very interesting. Not to say that the actual game is boring, but when the teams fight, it allows the fans to connect and really get into the game. But that doesn't mean the fights have to be ridiculously vicious. They should still exercise caution. If they want to fight, let them fight. That is the way it has been since the beginning. Telling hockey players not to fight would be like trying to tell football players not to tackle, or basketball players not to foul. It just happens. People, especially players when you're in a really intense game get excited and if they feel like the game is going unfair, they'll fight. Basically what I'm saying is, don't restrict hockey from fighting, but also tell the players to be smart about it.

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  • April 8, 2009 by bob

    Jacquelynn wrote: "Telling hockey players not to fight would be like trying to tell football players not to tackle, or basketball players not to foul. It just happens." These are not valid comparisons. 1. Tackling is a necessary part of North American football. It is how you stop the play and the opponent from advancing. If you don't tackle the opponent, he continues to run for a touchdown. You could say that "telling hockey players not to check would be like telling football players not to tackle," but even that would be an overstatement. Checking is definitely a legitimate part of hockey, but you could play hockey without checking and it would still be hockey. And tackling is a legitimate part of football, but not only that, it is an essential part of football--you can't play North American football without tackling. You can't compare that to a hockey fight. Do people readily accept fights in football? 2. A foul in basketball is comparable to a penalty in hockey. Yes, fighting will result in a penalty, but not all penalties result from fighting, indeed most penalties are not for fighting. A fight in hockey is much more than a hockey penalty/basektball foul. A hockey fight is comparable to a fight in basketball, not to a mere foul.

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• April 18, 2009 by Klaus Wannamaker

  All referees should be equipped with tazers and players who fight should be repeatedly tazered until they are rolling on the ice.

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  • April 21, 2010 by vernious

    Thats so funny i second on that one lol :)

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• April 18, 2009 by Klaus Wannamaker

  Referees should tazer those who are violent repeatedly. After a few deaths the problem doesn't exist anymore.

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