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Originally Posted by Textcritic
I was just about to come back and type something similar. I agree with you generally. And that is to say that I recognise the incredible power of beliefs, especially those that are formed within groups.
However, even whether we might agree that this fight had an impact on the play of the Flames that followed, this is not evidence of the positive effect of fighting in hockey. It is only evidence for the positive effect of beliefs about fighting in hockey. Even then, the studies that have been conducted show rather consistently that the usefulness of fighting in hockey is pretty negligible.
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I would suggest however, that all that matters is what the players belief is, because it's what turns a fight into something meaningful. There is no arguing, that there is 0 correlation between fighting and scoring a goal (obviously) because you can't score while fighting, but the belief or the creation of another emotional state for the team is all that matters when a fight occurs.
I think the problem with the analysis of trying to correlate the effectiveness or lack of in fighting on a game, is there is no base line for what "good" is. The anti fighting crowd will look at some stats and say, less than half the time (for example), when a team that's down fights, it doesn't spark a comeback. To them that proves fighting and results are not correlated.
I would suggest however, regardless of where you sit on the fence of this debate, that, that is false logic. Fighting is a tool in a team or a players tool kit of things they can use to influence the game (supposedly). Let's say for a second that a correlation could be made that said, 20% of the time when a fight occurs, the team mounts a comeback (fake stat, don't know the actuals). Anti fighting crowd will go, 80% of the time it doesn't work, fighting doesn't impact. Like I said, in my opinion that's flawed logic. For example, if you work in a sales environment, if you had a tool in your tool kit that when you used it, you got the sale or desired result 20% of the time........it's likely the best tool you've got and you'd rave about it's effectiveness. To use a hockey example, people are going on and on about the Flames shooting % and how un-sustainable it is. Our best shooting % on the team is what, about 20%. Would we then say that shooting a puck on net doesn't result in a goal 80% of the time, so it's not an effective thing to do in a game? Obviously not.
Understood that neither of those comparisons is perfect, as there is no "perfect" comparison. But the point is what is "good" when it comes to a success rate for a fight on ice. I'd argue, just like almost everything else in sports, it doesn't need to even have an over 50% success rate to be an effective tool.
Not to mention, that what statistic analysis of fights can't measure is just how effectively this "tool" get's used. Again, just like anything, there is an execution component that impacts its effectiveness. Pick a fight at the wrong time, with the wrong person, or don't do well in it might mean it will fail, but a well timed and executed fight might often yield results. Unfortunately, no way to every measure that properly.