Quote:
Originally Posted by BBQorMILDEW
[U]
Yes, it's barbaric, yes, it can cause injuries. But it's there for a reason. Trust me, if they banned fighting, the level of stick work and yapping would increase ten-fold. To me, it's a good deterrent to keep the pesky weasels from taking to many liberties against the top line players.
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Some people keep saying this, but I don't know how they could possibly believe it.
Just look at the 80's. Fighting was more commonplace. They didn't have instigating penalties, they didn't have rules against 3rd man in, or leaving the bench.
Yet, stick fouls were way higher in the 80's. You can find all kinds of just ruthless stuff on youtube.
That baseball swing by Suter got 6 games internationally and 4 NHL games. Nowadays it would probably be 30.
You rarely see intentional high sticking nowadays because the league comes down on it very hard. It has nothing to do with fighting.