NHL fans: Would you still watch hockey if fighting were banned?

I would but I don't mind fighting.

ok i love the fighting but i mean i like the game just as much

Yes. If I wanted to watch fighting, I'd watch boxing or all the martial arts/wrestling etc that are so popular with the goon crowd.

The fighting is half the fun. IF the NHL loses half of it's fun I'll move on to a sport that still endorses it's full dose of fun lol

Fights are only gravy.

My son plays DI hockey. cages or full shields very very seldom is there a fight. Just prue speed and hard finishing checks. The Arena's in New England and the mid west are packed, and it's not for the fights. It's a Canadian Major Junior mentality which trickles down to the Junior B and even to the junior C level.

getting rid of the fights would be even worse than the yuppy ban on good hits that has already happened. players 20 year ago got hit much harder and got up recovered and played again. yuppies softened kids so bad with the small playground equipment, helmets and pads for everything but sleeping they actually became brittle!

but end fighting would be more injuries tho

ur obviously not a true hockey fan if all u watch hockey for is the fights that is not wat hockey is about

i don't care for the fight i like watching the pens kick ass go pens

the answer says it all

I was watching a great fight the other night and it broke out into a Hockey game.

That's just a slight variation on the "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out" line. It's tired and old. Need new material.

Sorry Jen. How about this. Hockey sucks thats why it's down the list of popular sports.

Damn straight...it's not a boring sport like Nascar, where the crashes are the only excitement. Fighting or not, it's still hard hitting and action packed all 3 periods

Well said. If there were no fighting in the NHL, it would still be an awesome sport with plenty of hitting and action.

People say the sport is boring, but yet there's more hitting in it than football, and they don't stop playing once they are hit, you get up and go for the puck. Football is less hitting and NO fights at all...yet people have boners for it lol

I don't know that it has more hitting than football ... after all, NHL teams play 82 games a year (plus as many as 20 or 25 playoff games), whereas NFL teams only play 16 games a year, with no more than 4 postseason games.

But yeah, there's definitely more action ... I read once that in a 60-minute football game, the total amount of time actually spent playing football is no more than 10 or 12 minutes. In hockey, it's ALL 60!!!

Yeah, probably right about the hitting thing haha But yeah, I've. Found myself being bored plenty of times while watching football, but with hockey,I'm always on the edge of my seat...I'm so happy the new season has started! :)

That would be as boring as figure skating with no Tonya Harding.

Then no offense, but you're not a true hockey fan. Watch MMA or something instead.

I tried watching an MMA match but a hockey game broke out, nyuk nyuk. :P

but it would lose some luster for me.

Would you go to the opera if they didn't sing?

What a horrible analogy.

Singing is the main part of opera. Fighting is not the main part of hockey.

I would....I once had the pleasure years ago of being in Minneapolis when an elite college player skills camp was held at the university rink during summer. It was the fastest and best non-contact hockey you'd ever want to see....I watched several games in a row every time I had the chance....great hockey

I am reminded of an old axiom, "I went to a Basketball Game, and a Fight broke out!"

The next week, "I went to a Fight, and a Hockey Game broke out!" The fighting is inherently
a big part of the attraction for Hockey!

It's one thing if they have a reason to fight.

But most of the time, they seem to fight for no reason at all. Each team sends its "heavyweight" out there prior to the face-off, and then they just start going at it as soon as the puck is dropped.

I've even seen cases where one of the fighters is "miked up" and you can hear them saying to each other, "Wanna go? Okay, good luck, man." Ridiculous.

>>>The fighting is inherently a big part of the attraction for Hockey!<<<

Only for people who don't appreciate what the game really is all about, and the skills required to play it well.

I never missed a game when the Houston Aeros played in Houston. I didn't go to see a fight, I went to see the legend Gordie Howe play...and lead his team to a win.

along with his son's Mark and Marty. One son was the reason the bottom of the nets were changed to the circular design of today. Back in "my day" the bottom was in the shape of a m but not that extreme One of his boys was tripped on his way to the net and was impaled on the m part of the net. I still cringe just thinking about it

They've already taken most of the fighting out of it from what I remember watching as a child.(they used to allow much more before refs would step in) I still enjoy watching the sport, even without the additional sport of beating the crap out of the other man when he comes at you in a way that makes you want to wail on his face. Less exciting sure, but it's not like with the exception of MMA or Boxing, any other sport allows such a thing anyway. If my Red Wings are playing, I'll watch no matter what, but to be honest it does kinda suck to know you're getting closer and closer to not seeing any physical altercations between players.

A lot of the fights seem staged anyway.

Hmm really? I guess maybe since the majority of my fighting allowed hockey watching was done at a young age, that didn't occur to me XD Of course, I almost at one point in my youth thought the WWF(now the WWE) was real too...now I know that if you turn someone upside down, thrust them into the air, and have their head between your legs as it smashes down into a solid hard surface, it's probably something that is more likely to paralyze or kill them, and not something they'd just get up from XD The entertainment factor is still there though on some level.