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Originally Posted by strombad
You propose a study that would look at objective (without influence of personal emotions or opinions) end points regarding the effect of fighting (an act which has a purely personal emotional effect that almost all players share)? Good luck...
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It's not so far fetched at all. There are some pretty bright people in this world who have devised objective methods to analyse for all sorts of things that we would regard as subjects of emotive responses. Why can't it be done to calculate the effect of in-game events? You are now venturing from a fallacious argument from authority to an argument of incredulity, and it feels suspiciously like you are moving the goalposts in this debate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strombad
...I want to be clear, the debate about whether or not the health risks of fighting outweigh it's value is entirely fair, and even I question it. But saying it has no effect, or that players are not reliable regarding it's effect (when it's solely an emotional effect felt by the players) holds no merit. So say what you want, but until you understand fighting in the NHL, you're never going to properly be able to argue against it.
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Having watched hockey my entire life, having grown up in a culture that promotes the nuclear deterrent argument, having enjoyed MANY good hockey fights, and having recently changed my mind about the usefulness about fighting in hockey, I will unequivocally reject the notion that I don't understand fighting in the NHL. I get it, and I have decided that it is obsolete.
I will concede that fighting in hockey produces an emotional lift, but that in itself is not a good argument at all regarding the effectiveness of this ONE activity. Sport is an incubator of emotions, and players will derive motivation and inspiration from practically ANYTHING within the course of a game. If not from a fight, the it would occur from something else.
I assume from your recent tack that you have (wisely) moved away from the nuclear deterrent argument, and that now your case rests on the statement that it has a "mental effect", which I interpret to mean that the role of fighting in hockey is to produce shifts in momentum. Please correct me if I am misrepresenting your thoughts here.
If this is true, then the counter action should also be true. That is, if the role of fighting in hockey is a necessary catalyst to inducing "emotion" and building or shifting "momentum", then its elimination from the game will result in the loss of "emotion" from the game. Do you honestly believe that? I sincerely doubt it, but I will ask you: if you deem fighting to be such an essential component of the game itself, then you surely have foreseen or can predict what will negatively occur, and what will be lost with its elimination. In other words, what do you think the end result will be, in a NHL without fighting? Or, more appropriately, what do you think the end result will be, in a NHL with huge limitations to the frequency of fighting?
Surely you believe that something catastrophic will result from this, so what is it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by strombad
...Plus, all these notions of outside studies and inquiries are great, but it's a bit of a fantasy.
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For now, yes it is. Again, I keep seeing these sorts of declarations from the pro-fighting crowd as if they are enough to end the debate. I can't help but feel as if they are indications that you know the weakness of the position from an evidentiary standpoint. Why should anyone even care about the popularity of fighting in hockey in a discussion about its merits within the game and its effect on the outcome? Popularity on its own is not even a remotely good measure of effectiveness or value, so it really doesn't matter here one way or the other.