I don't watch ice hockey much, but it's on at the weekends on Channel 5 here in the UK. Occasionally I'll watch a little bit. One thing I don't understand is the fighting. Can someone explain to me a few things. Firstly, why do the players fight? Secondly, why do the refs allow them to fight? Thirdly, why are they punished for fighting if the refs don't do anything to stop it?

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On a given day or given circumstance, you think you have a limit.
And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit and you think "Ok, this is the limit".
As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further.
With your mind power, your determination, your instinct and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

- Ayrton Senna, R.I.P.

It's part of the game. And as long as it's a fair fight it helps to blow off steam.

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BIGCRUMBS You deserve a BITE.

Cause Icehockey is very intense. You see these fights cause they're well protected so a bit fighting doesn't hurt, and the penalty (2 till 5 minutes) was already handed out, so maybe that's the reason for letting them go ahead.

edit: typing

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-- They tell me tomorrow will never arrive, but I've seen it end a million times. --

What other sports do players fight as part of the game? (other than boxing, martial arts, etc)

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On a given day or given circumstance, you think you have a limit.
And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit and you think "Ok, this is the limit".
As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further.
With your mind power, your determination, your instinct and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

- Ayrton Senna, R.I.P.

Well, in football (soccer). Watching the sportnews and from time to time you see fighting going on in the Latin-America competitions.

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-- They tell me tomorrow will never arrive, but I've seen it end a million times. --

Fighting in football is very occasionaly, and the players involved almost always get sent off (not for 5 minutes either). Fighting seems to be an integral part of hockey

__________________
On a given day or given circumstance, you think you have a limit.
And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit and you think "Ok, this is the limit".
As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further.
With your mind power, your determination, your instinct and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

- Ayrton Senna, R.I.P.

That's correct but also in IceHockey you can be sent off (not for 5 minutes but for the whole game).

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-- They tell me tomorrow will never arrive, but I've seen it end a million times. --

The refs are instructed not to interfere until the players fall down. It is too dangerous otherwise.

You will see that as soon as the players fall on the ice, then the refs jump in, up till then they stand back.

This is in the UK, I don't know about elsewhere.

If you want to watch real fights in sport check out the Rugby League when they get started, they rarely get sent off either. Aussie rules is another good one.

It's just part of the culture of the sport that these things are accepted, if not strictly speaking allowed.

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I guess the Fights in Hockey could be compared to the filming in Soccer/Football as a part of the game.
There is alot of things going on between the players in Ice or Football-Field
that audience dont know or hear.
All the "psychological" playing, bringing down the other teams moral by verbal combat.
Basically i think they call each other names all the time and say nasty things
about mothers etc.



Fights in Hockey is rather useless and does more damage to the team in the long run.
Player gets penalty from 2 min to Shower (a.k.a.Kick-Out-Of-The-Game)
Some penalties go can extend over next games too, depends on situations though.
I think the same kind of rules are in Soccer/football.
To lose a player in Hockey, if only for 2 min. can make a difference on whos
winning the game.

A bit about Soccer:
The biggest annoyance for me in Soccer-Football is the Filming, players pretending
teh pain and fishing free penalty kicks etc.
I would like to see Camera-Refs. in Soccer too, as in Hockey.
Any possible filming situation would be rewinded and watched over again,
to get the right Penalty for the situation, if needed.
It would be somewhat chaos at the beginning but im pretty sure them footballers would get
the idea soon enuff and stop filming. Just my 2cents about that.

Back to the topic, sort of:
Fighting in hockey is not so much supported in Scandinavia as in NHL.
I see it a bit like the Formula vs Indy thingie, formula-cars have more strict
rules for tuning because of security of the drivers etc, in Indy them cars have a little
less rules about tuning, cars are heavier and has more horse-powers,
that could affect the security of the cars/drivers.
I bet 4th.gen-noob can correct me if im talking bull here.


What im saying is, for me it seems American versions of the same kind of sports
has less strict rules. Thats no fact or a rule of thumb, thats just the way i see when
looking at Hockey-Soccer or Formula-Indy sports.

Im not trying to bullshitt or blackpaint any versions of these sports but as i've seen in
games in NHL, i've found myself thinking "that fight would not gotten away with same results"
in Scaninavian Hockey Leagues, or "that fight would have been stopped earlier"
(im talking the Championship Leagues in Finland & Sweden)

Keep in mind that the IceHockey is a little bit
different in NHL and in Europe, Even the Ice, the arena is different size.
Maybe European Hockey is considered a little bit boring because of the more
strict attitude on Fighting, maybe ppl in NHL-audience like to see more "action", as in fights.. does that go over to other sports also? Im not reallty sure but for me it
seems so.

Please correct me if im wrong about these, I dont follow sports that much anymore,
mainly because i live in Norway and all i see is Football on Telly all the time, (2 channels, no cable)
thats a national sport here i guess and i've gotten an OverDose.
I use to follow Hockey and Football a lot when i was a kid tho
but the rules might have chanced a lot ever since.

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I play hockey in a league, and there is a lot of fights/flare ups usually in the last couple of minutes in let's say a playoff game when one team is losing 2-1 or 3-2 and so on. The losing team will be knocked out so they have nothing to lose, so they try and screw up the other team, which leads to one big team fight