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New rules knock out NHL fights
Emphasis shifts while battles drop 20 percent
By John Niyo
DETROIT--Bob Probert is facing retirement in Chicago. Joe Kocur has a new job as an assistant coach, wearing a suit behind the Wings' bench.
Clearly, the bloody-knuckle days of Detroit's famed Bruise Brothers in the 1980s are a thing of the past. And so, too, perhaps, is fighting in the NHL.
Fighting in NHL games has dropped steadily in recent years, and the number of major penalties assessed for fighting is off again this year. Through the first 216 games this season, there have been 250 fighting majors, nearly 20 percent fewer than a year ago.
That's an average of 1.2 fighting majors per game, down from 1.4 at this time a year ago.
And of the first 100 games played this season, nearly 60 percent featured not a single fight. The Wings, hardly a pack of pugilists, have had but three fights -- by Darren McCarty, Sean Avery and Jesse Wallin -- in 14 games this season.
Remember when fans used to chirp incessantly about the Wings needing to go out and add an enforcer to the roster to protect their star players?
"Well, we don't feel pressure to do that anymore," admits Dave Lewis, the Wings' head coach.
The shift away from fighting is the result of a variety of factors, but most notably the rule changes -- including a league-mandated crackdown on obstruction -- that emphasize skill and speed.
"The game is harder to play now for the guys that are the fighters," ESPN analyst Bill Clement said. "They're usually not gifted skaters, so they're not getting as much ice time.
"I think the style change hurts them as much as anything. If you can't play, you can't fight. And in today's game, it's harder to play if you're not a pretty decent skater."
In Colorado, noted tough guy Scott Parker has played in only three of his team's first 15 games, and sparingly at that -- a season-high 3:09 against Minnesota. Carolina recently shipped Darren Langdon to Vancouver, favoring Jesse Boulerice, a better skater, to handle the part-time, on-ice policeman duties.
Even the more gifted enforcers -- including Toronto's Tie Domi, Philadelphia's Donald Brashear and Chicago's Chris Simon -- are having trouble finding the time to drop the gloves.
It took Domi, Toronto's all-time leader in penalty minutes, until the 10th game of the season to get into his first scrap. And he has twice as many goals (four) as he does fights (two) this season. Edmonton's Georges Laraque, the league's reigning heavyweight champ, also had only two fights under his belt in the Oilers' first 14 games.
Hurry-up faceoffs, another new addition this season, serve to speed up the game, but also to eliminate some of the after-the-whistle posturing that often sparks fights.
"Before you'd have a hit or a scrum maybe along the boards, and then there would be an altercation," Lewis said. "But now it seems like the players aren't thinking that way. They're thinking, 'I've got to get back to the bench.'"
On the bench, the thinking has changed, too. Power-play goals are up markedly -- nearly 25 percent more this season -- so while there's less ice time available for fourth-line players, there's also a greater deterrent.
"It's tough, because you don't want to be a liability out there," said Boston's P.J. Stock, another of the league's notorious fighters. "And to get a guy to fight, you can't just hook him like you used to or get in his way. That's a penalty now, too."
Critics, of course, will argue that any push to phase out fighting is an error in judgement. Many believe that the NHL's catering to a more mainstream U.S. television audience damages the sport's roots.
"This is not women's hockey," said Don Cherry, the outspoken CBC analyst and noted fight fan. "Pretty soon, they're going to be wearing skirts."
That's a concern shared by others, though perhaps not quite as colorfully.
"It's never the fans that decide those things," Stock said. "It's always the people who aren't really involved, people don't play or haven't played the game. It's the critics on the side who watched the Olympics, where you had the 50 best players in the world, and that's what they're trying to make the NHL look like now. It's crazy."
Others aren't so sure. Lewis, for one, says he still views fighting as "part of the game." And, to be sure, there will always be fights. Even high-priced stars Jarome Iginla and Bill Guerin went toe-to-toe recently.
"But I think what'll happen is the tough guys will find ways to keep themselves in the game," Lewis said. "They'll figure out ways to do their job."
In the meantime, it appears the league will continue trying to do their job for them, denying would-be offenders both the motive and the opportunity.
Said Clement: "I was really pro-fighting as a deterrent to people carrying their sticks too high, to the pseudo-heroes who didn't have to back it up because they didn't have to pay the consequence of getting embarrassed in front of 18,000 people.
"But there seems to be a respect creeping back in to the league. We went through a four- or five-year period where it was disappearing. But now with the respect creeping back in, as long as it remains, then the need for fighting doesn't seem to be as great.
"It was always used as a frontier-type of justice when somebody was taking advantage of your players. That doesn't seem to be happening as much. And it won't as long as things are called the way they are."
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"Es interessiert mich nicht, ob ich ein blaues Auge oder eine gebrochene Nase bekomme. Ich bin eh schon hässlich."
- Chicagos LW Kyle Calder
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11.11.2003 16:45
). Der Osten reisst mich bis jetzt nicht so vom Hocker. Stock, Lessard, Peat etc. sind auch gute Fighter, aber das meiste, was Rang und Namen hat, spielt im Wilden Westen. Die meisten bekannten Fighter aus dem Osten (Brashear, Ray, McCarthy) sind dazu noch UFAs. 
