Comments on: Fighting frequency way up in shortened season

By: h0ckeycoach

h0ckeycoach — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:56:44 +0000

Enough with the fighting, NHL. Punches to the head can cause serious injury. Why tolerate this? Show the fans you care more about player safety than TV ratings. What about mandatory visors? What did you say? NHL: ratings will go down if everyone has to wear a visor because fighting will be on the decline.

Of course! And why don’t you want to move Phoenix out of AZ? NHL: because if we do, then the salary cap cieling will increase if they’re to a better market.

By: lonespeed

lonespeed — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:38:42 +0000

I generally find fighting in the NHL annoying, especially when they fight just to be fighting. I do appreciate the occassional retaliation for getting too physical with a star or making a dirty hit, but even that sometimes is a reach.

The playoffs are a perfect example. Usually when there is a fight in the playoffs it is warranted, but fighting in the playoffs for the most part doesn’t happen. That alone tells me the act in general isn’t really necessary. But that being said, when it is necessary I do think they should be allowed to go at it. So I appreciate fighting in the playoffs because it obviously is the real deal.

By: boltsfan777

boltsfan777 — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:55:21 +0000

My thought has been that some of it has been just personal economics. Many of the fights I’ve seen occur in the very early minutes of the game, sometimes occurring even after light or no contact. For many players, physical toughness is more than half of their game, so especially in the shortened season, they have to show they can change the momentum of the game early and often, if they expect to keep their roster spot. They also get tired of being healthy scratches, which I suppose could get them jacked up when they get a chance.

By: ironyisadeadscene

ironyisadeadscene — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:15:42 +0000

Also more playing time for 4th lines in this compact schedule

By: f2maestro

f2maestro — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:26:49 +0000

I personally love fighting in the NHL so I am not complaining about the increase. There’s two factors I see that could be influencing this trend; Lack of Inter conference play and playing more games more often as a result of the condensed/shortened season.

By: chicagobtech

chicagobtech — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:21:15 +0000

Let’s see…
82 games per team.
30 teams in the League.
Doing the math, not forgetting to divide by two, come out to 1,230 games in the NHL regular season.
At 0.44 fights per game, that’s a hair over 541 fights last season.

48 games this season for each team.
The math tells me the season will have 720 games.
At 0.55 fights per game, it’s projecting out to be 396 fights this season.

Frequency is up 25% halfway through the season, but the number of fights based on that frequence is down 27%. Let’s see how everything wraps up once the campaign is over.