[lawnchair_larry]

There is a theory that fighting actually prevents serious injuries and concussions.

Teams have goons and enforcers. It’s the goon’s job to hurt star players. A skilled goon can lay a clean, legal, but devastating hit on your top scorer and go unpunished. If he gets him when his head is down or not paying attention, he can take him out of the game, the series, or potentially the season. It’s those hits that cause injuries and end careers.

An enforcer is hired to send a message that if you plan to incorporate injuring the star player as part of your strategy, he’s going to beat the living hell out of you.

Fights are by mutual consent, and almost never result in serious injury. But they hurt physically, and losing one hurts morale.

The league actually introduced an instigator penalty a while back, which means whoever initiated the fight is penalized. Concussions went up, because now the enforcer couldn’t do his job, or his own team suffers even more. So it was open season with cheap shots on stars.

[alkonaut]

> There is a theory that fighting actually prevents serious injuries and concussions.

I think that theory is BS. Fighting is a well known cause of concussions. https://www.nhl.com/news/concussion-panel-recommends-hockey-...

> Teams have goons and enforcers. > An enforcer is hired to send a message that if you plan to incorporate injuring the star player as part of your strategy, he’s going to beat the living hell out of you.

This sounds like the NHL in 1999, not 2019. Enforcers are mostly gone thank god.

> A skilled goon can lay a clean, legal, but devastating hit on your top scorer and go unpunished. > If he gets him when his head is down or not paying attention, he can take him out of the game.

The rules are very different now (or compared very differently at least) compared to 20 yeears ago too. 20 years ago you saw people glorify open-ice blindsidee hits saying "heads up!". Now hitting someone when their head is low invariably is a suspension. The responsibility is on the tackling player. An attacker with his head too low is not a valid target.

> and almost never result in serious injury

The figures range from 5 to 10% of concussions coming from fighting. It's not a lot, and probably not the most serious ones - but they are all unnecessary unlike the others which are part of the game.

My theory is that glorifying violence is bad full stop. I don't care whether NHL players get a few more concussions. They make millions and have great healthcare. The problem is my kid who watches this and thinks that's how you play hockey. Fighting doesn't disappear because it results in match penalties. It just stops the glorification. Linesmen should never back off two fighting players, crowds cheering with their popcorn. It's disgusting.

[lawnchair_larry]

> Now hitting someone when their head is low invariably is a suspension. The responsibility is on the tackling player. An attacker with his head too low is not a valid target.

The rules are way more strict now, but this isn’t accurate. It has to be intentionally targeting the head, or feet leaving the ground. There is no responsibility on the player unless contact with the head was deemed to be avoidable. That doesn’t apply to the hit overall, as there is never an obligation to avoid contact - just that if you do make contact, and you have the option of where to hit them, you aren’t allowed to choose the head.

The rule states:

In determining whether contact with an opponent’s head was avoidable, the circumstances of the hit including the following shall be considered:

(i) Whether the player attempted to hit squarely through the opponent’s body and the head was not “picked” as a result of poor timing, poor angle of approach, or unnecessary extension of the body upward or outward.

(ii) Whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position by assuming a posture that made head contact on an otherwise full body check unavoidable.

> I don't care whether NHL players get a few more concussions. They make millions and have great healthcare.

That’s the biggest issue in professional contact sports, particularly football and hockey, so any argument that dismisses it is not going to be very compelling.

There is no such thing as good health care for concussions. It’s permanent brain damage.

[alkonaut]

I’m obviously not in favor of increasing concussions - but luckily I don’t buy into the argument that fighting increases concussions, so it’s not even a tradeoff in my view. Reducing fighting can cut the 5-10% of concussions that come from fighting in pro leagues and help reduce them elsewhere as an added bonus. A less ridiculous sport is icing on the cake.

[lawnchair_larry]

Read the stats. Concussions and missed games due to injuries are on the rise, with a jump immediately following the rule changes that made traditional enforcers no longer a viable option. You are trading that 10% for a much larger number due to bullies and pests getting away with cheap shots.

It could be just a long transition phase, but stats show that fighting was the mitigation, not the problem. They removed the mitigation and unleashed the real problem. They are trying to address the real problem now, but so far, the evidence suggests that they have not yet found a more effective solution than allowing stars to have bodyguards. It would be great if they can solve both.

Good intentions can have unintended side effects. You know, like time the time the US toppled that brutal Saddam guy and accidentally made ISIS.

[alkonaut]

If that’s the case then the increase would be seen in the NHL where there is a history of fights and enforcers but not e.g in the Swiss or Swedish leagues where there isn’t. But concussions are up across the board.

The more reasonable explanation for more head injuries is the game is faster (much fewer hookings, for example) and a focus on speed and skill over size and strength.

There just is no “I can’t punch this guy in the face so I’ll give him a cheap blindside to the head”. The stats doesn’t support the hypothesis.

[pvg]

Teams have goons and enforcers

They don't, really, and the stats show a fairly steady decrease in fighting. There might be a 'theory' but the evidence is fighting is on the way out.

You could make the argument that removing players who specialize in fighting and the ceremony and ritual surrounding it it makes fighting more dangerous - a recent case in point would be Ovechkin knocking out Svechnikov earlier this year. But that's also an even better argument for eliminating fighting altogether.

[lawnchair_larry]

Yes it’s definitely on the decline, and nothing like before the rule changes, but it’s still an issue. Crosby has been punished heavily his whole career and suffered several concussions, so the Penguins had to make changes to give him more protection.

The theory is backed by the evidence. It’s correlation, but the link seems obvious. Concussions went way up after the original instigator rule. They went up even more after the “no hits to the head if you can hit somewhere else rule”.

The number of man games lost in the playoffs has also gone up steadily.

So by all metrics, outcomes have gotten worse. Pests and cheap shots have no deterrent, and compared to fighting, those are what cause real damage.

Your arguments sound plausible, but the numbers tell a far different story, and the coaches who have star players vocally disagree with you.

https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-instigator-penalty-needs-to...

”The instigator rule may be limiting fights, but it isn’t protecting the players. It’s allowing dirty players to thrive. And that has to be worse for hockey than two players facing off in an effort to guard their teammates.”

Don’t get me wrong, I get the moral argument and the issue with glorifying violence. I don’t have an opinion on fights, but I find the change in outcomes to be interesting in the behavioral economics sense.