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.

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.