Hockey is a violent sport. A lot of hockey people think that allowing fights, which in the NHL usually happen between each team's designated "goons", prevents or lessens other dirty/dangerous play that would build up with unchecked aggression that is a pretty natural part of the sport. That's an oversimplification, but one of the major justifications.

I love watching hockey. I think it is a great sport that allows for many different paths to victory -- you can have a winning team made up of fast, graceful, highly skilled players, OR cerebral, teamwork based players, OR intimidating, brute force goons. Or a mix of any/all of those.

I'm not an expert, but I'm a fan. I didn't grow up with hockey in my blood (not from Canada), but became a fan in my teens. But, I do actually see a certain amount of logic in the hockey pundits argument that fighting cuts down on other dirty play. I think that if anyone watches enough hockey, they see evidence that it is true. Maybe not quite as true as the pro-fight pundits suggest, but it is there.

Better officiating, penalties, and suspensions for the kinds of dangerous / dirty play that fighting is supposed to cut down on would help. Even though I think fighting has a place in the game, the NHL does need to evolve some more consistency in those areas.

I'm a Colorado Avalanche fan. The Avs main rival for a long time was the Detroit Red Wings, and then a former Wings player (Brendan Shanahan) became the head of player safety. His job was basically to review dirty plays or plays that resulted in an injury, and dole out warnings/suspensions/fines. He took a lot of flack for inconsistency; many people thought that in two similar incidents he might hand out a long suspension to one and a slap on the wrist to the other. But even though he was from my "rival team", I thought he did a pretty good job, and it represented a great step forward for the NHL. The thing that I thought he did really well was that for every incident he reviewed, there was always a video available on the internet showing what happened from multiple angles followed by his thoughts on it, what disciplinary action he was going to issue, and his justifications for it. Of course everyone isn't always going to agree about that kind of stuff, but he put it out in the open instead of behind closed doors.

To me, that was a big step forward for the NHL. If they continue on that path, I think it is reasonable to suggest that fighting will become less important/necessary/beneficial. But I think it will always be at least a small part of the game.

I call fake on it. There's always a setup couple in the crowd for something like that. The most notable ones are people wearing opposing jerseys. The only time it wasn't faked is when Steve Yzerman leaped over teammates to kiss Martin Lapointe on the kiss cam, who wouldn't kiss Brendan Shanahan =)

http://youtu.be/G6Vvz-if8xY

Bill shanahan.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-shanahan-moons-debate-judge-in-heat-of-argument

more on it.

According to the site you gave me, the judge in question was so stricken because she voted the team that struck her down. Then claimed it was white privilege, that sounds pretty biased to me. This information came from an email in the above site you posted. I was not being inaccurate at all, the judge was bias, because if she wasn't she would not have gotten up in a hussy about being stricken.

PS: I don't know what stricken means, but what ever it was. It sure started a storm. I could put an extremely accurate caption, and people would still read what they want it to say not what is written. If you read it says nothing on what the judge is biased on. I didn't write that the argument was started over bias, only that a Judge was bias. Upon further investigation it would seem that she is bias to being stricken.

>> ^nvalley:
The caption for this story is extremely inaccurate. The argument did not occur or escalate based on any accusations of bias. There is plenty of of discussion available at ndtceda.com in the August archives as to why the situation occurred. But, no accusations or implications of bias were ever used by either party. Please don't post inaccurate information.