Fighting In Hockey

The NHL has come a long way since the first Stanley cup in 1927. Hockey has had its highs, lows, stars and controversies just like any other sport. Recently hockey has come under-fire for too many fights. There are some people who think the fights in hockey are too violent. Some think that these fights are a bad influence on youth hockey players. And most of the rest think that it is an important aspect of the game. Without fights many of the older hockey players believe that the NHL would fail. Bobby Clarke, who was a legend on the Philadelphia Flyers, was asked how hockey would be without fighting. His response was "Could you imagine vodka without alcohol?”. Bobby Clarke comes from a time when hockey was struggling in his city. To get the crowds to come they had to fight. They fought enough the team was known as soon enough they became known as the “Broad Street Bullies”. A more recent story, well more of a rumor, was that the Anaheim Ducks were not allowed to fight. The reason behind this is because they were owned by Disney. Disney wanted the hockey games to be family-orientated and appropriate for all ages. The Ducks never won the Stanley Cup while being owned by Disney. A couple years after Disney sold the team however, The Ducks won the Stanley Cup.

The overall point these two examples bring up is that fighting is necessary for hockey. Hockey without fights would lose around half its fans. Many people watch hockey just for the fights, hits and violence which baseball and basketball horribly lack. Fighting is also a strategy for hockey, many teams hire “goons” to do nothing but fight and change the overall emotion of the game. Fighting will always be a part of hockey and the NHL will just hurt their organization if they ban fighting for good. As the old saying goes, “I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out”