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Why is brawl allowed in NHL?
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this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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On your point about practicality. I think a big point about not breaking up fights is that they are on ice, which is slippery, and they won't have a good grip on the ground, and on skates so not the most solid footing. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's not a worthwhile risk when both hockey players have full gear vs. a ref with minimal gear.
Plus, the context of it being accepted as part of tradition weighs on why it's not as heavily regulated. If they wanted to, officials can force teams to be disqualified or ban players. Another point is It is more profitable to allow fights. Unless players themselves argue to ban fights for their safety, this will likely stay legal. The fact is, the new meta of having a good team but able to rough up the opposing team is better than it was before. Also quite a bit more enjoyable too.
This sounds reasonable, but no. Fights are successfully broken up all the time by the officials. It has gotten really irritating in the last 10 years how quickly they will jump in and separate players. Sometimes they will even jump in too soon, which results in a guy being held by an official but still getting punched by his opponent.
If you are confused by one of my other comments where I say "referees will never break up fights" it's because the refs don't break up fights, but the linesmen do. Refs: guys in striped shirts with an orange armband, linesmen: guys in striped shirts without.
Also everyone saying that the league wants more fighting clearly doesn't follow the NHL. The NHL has been steadily introducing rules over the last decade specifically to decrease the amount of fighting because they are wary of a similar CTE (chronic traumatic encephaly, aka brain damage) controversy that has taken root in the NFL and the WWE and they are afraid of getting their asses sued into the ground.
I am highlighting a limitation. Also, I never saw them break up fights by being able to "carry" or restrain players away from each other like other sports. It's much harder to do on the ice. A lot of times, the linesmen are mostly separating the players by strategically intercepting between the players' line of sight by pushing in between the players. On top of that, the players have enough sense that they should not hurt an official, especially when it's not advantageous back when it was the meta to have brawlers. However, there were moments when the players ignored the linesmen interception and kept going. Small example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yDkNvuuENwo
Also, I'm not saying the league wants more fights. They want to control those fights because they are profitable for entertainment, IE the fans and surrounding community are entertained by the drama. Having a fight break out for no reason other than to cause harm was not fun or much for entertainment. However, talking smack or telling someone off for bad plays/manners is fun to see.
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