Quote:
Originally Posted by MattyC
This is exactly my point though. So many people against fighting cry about how/why the NHL allows this. They don't. It's against the rules. As I said in my original post, whether or not the punishments that currently exist are enough to deter it (and I said in my post that it's not) is a different story. The NHLPA has a say in rule changes, if they didn't this would have likely changed a long time ago.
The players accept it by participating in it regardless of the rules, the teams accept it by employing people purely for that purpose (and we are seeing the effect of speeding up the game to deter this right now), adn the fans accept it by mostly claiming it to be an entertaining part of the game, particularly in US markets. But the NHL, as a league, does not. And have been actively fighting to get at least the frequency dropped for a while.
IMO, they should be giving more discretion for the on-ice refs. They hear what people are saying, are in the tensions of the game, and know the players well enough that I trust they can make a judgment call on instigation (particularly on those following clean checks, which is my biggest pet peeve). If you instigate, your gone and the opposing player forced to protect themselves receives nothing and team gets a 5 min PP. If it's deemed to be "staged" (mostly fights right at faceoffs) both players are gone.
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I think the refs should be mic'd up. It doesn't have to be broadcast (but at times that would be awesome).
The effort by the league to get it out of the game, IMO, has been piss poor. While they have rules against it, they are soft. If the league wanted it out, they could try to bring in rules like: fight and you are gone for the game, second fight and it is the game and next game, etc.
To put it a better way the NHL has a tacit acceptance of fighting.