When most Americans think of hockey, they think of ice, skates, and pucks. They will most likely also think of fighting. After all, in the United States hockey highlights are usually relegated to the back-ends of sports casts, well behind those of basketball, football, and baseball. Hockey can even fall begin golf on some days. One of the few times hockey comes to the forefront is when there is a fight. People find hockey fights fascinating and sometimes that’s the only time they see hockey featured on TV. So for many casual fans, and people who don’t know anything about hockey, fighting seems to be a big part of the game. Even many hockey purists hold fighting next their hearts as something that should be cherished. But does it really add anything to the game? Fighting in hockey is a longstanding tradition, but it is entirely unnecessary. If a day comes when fighting is banned, the sport will not suffer. In fact, that might be the step hockey needs to take it to the next level in terms of popularity.
If you have never seen a hockey fight, it will usually go something like this:
1. Two players circle each other after taking off their gloves.
2. They come closer together.
3. Each player throws punches at the other as quickly and as accurately as possible.
4. They fall on top of one another.
5. The referees pull them apart.
Obviously, this description does not do justice to the sheer excitement that the fight will cause among the crowd. But most fights don’t stray too much from this formula, and most of them are not that great in general. People usually get excited because of the novelty of a fight, not because the fight is an awesome display of physical combat. In fact, most fights end in an anti-climatic fizzle. A lot of people don’t realize that. The cheering and rise in adrenaline comes from seeing two grown athletes do something that isn’t done in any other major team sport. On the other hand, if they went to a boxing match and got the calibre of fights equivalent to what is usually seen in hockey, they would be sorely disappointed.
Anyone who claims hockey would be less exciting without fighting would be wrong. Crowds cheer just as loudly when a goal is scored or an unbelievable save is made. Hearts pound just as quickly in overtime or during a shootout. The greatest example of how hockey can be exciting without fighting is the gold medal game of the recent Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Anyone who watched that game sat glued to their TV and their palms were probably sweating throughout the whole game. That game was hockey at its best – and there wasn’t a single fight. In fact, there wasn’t even a hint of a fight because it was the Olympics. And yet audiences were on the edge of their seats for more than three periods.
The reason why the Olympic game was thrilling is because people cared about their team. When people have a vested interest in their team and its players, hockey is absolutely electrifying. Real hockey fans already know this. What the NHL needs to work on is publicising its players and its teams so that non-hockey fans start to care about their local franchises the same way they did for the Olympic team. If the crutch of fighting was removed as something that supposedly made the game more exciting, it would force executives to place emphasis on the more difficult aspect of marketing the game itself. This would serve hockey in the long run because the game is fundamentally exhilarating even without fighting. Furthermore, it would silence critics who put down the sport for its seemingly barbaric nature. In the long run, the fights which are not that great to begin with, would not be missed. And a better promoted product would mean hockey could reach a lot more fans to share in this awesome game.
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