#Hockey fight pro game professional

That’s where players like Wilson come in. While most fights may start with players standing up for teammates, hockey has not completely lost the old enforcer mentality. Louis case, wants to defend his teammate and you give him the opportunity to do so and if your teammate was ever hit, you'd expect him to be willing,” Wilson said. Wilson was engaged with another Blues player when Bortuzzo injected himself into the conversation and sparked a fight. Louis in January for the first time since that hit, Wilson dropped the gloves with Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo in a fight that felt a lot more motivated by the Sundqvist hit than anything that was happening during the game. Wilson was suspended in the preseason for a hit he delivered to St. “He asks and you'd expect the same in return.”Īs seen from Elle some grudges can carry over from a prior game. “Sometimes you're almost doing the guy a favor,” Wilson said. It is expected and often respected even if it doesn’t happen right away. “If you're right there and you're the first guy and you feel like that's what you should do, then you've got to do it,” Smith-Pelly said.įrom the other end, if you deliver a big hit, you are not going to be caught off guard when the other team comes after you. If you see a teammate take a dirty play, then you are expected to respond. Smith-Pelly’s reaction to the hit was immediate. Gudas delivered a shoulder check right to the chest of Nic Dowd that knocked Dowd to the ice. 8 when Smith-Pelly dropped the gloves with Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Radko Gudas. “Probably all my fights are with a hit that I don't agree with at the time,” Devante Smith-Pelly said.Ī very recent example came on Jan. Hockey is a contact sport so it is impossible to react after every hit, but if it is believed a player has crossed the line between physical and dirty, then he will have to answer for it. In today’s NHL, the most common reason for fighting is to stand up for a teammate. That's just the way it was, their tough guy vs. “Probably a decade ago you would know before the game started that the two guys were going to fight. “The staged fights between guys that play under five minutes, that’s gone obviously,” Wilson said. The days of the traditional enforcer, however, are over. It was valued to such a degree that players who could barely produce offensively and got very little playing time were felt to be a necessity in the lineup.

How does a fight start? Why does a fight start? You just kind of have to be out there, feel it out and make a decision.”įighting used to be much more prevalent in the sport. “There's a million different ways that it can happen,” Tom Wilson said. Those rules are constantly evolving over time. Hockey fighting is much more nuanced with a number of unwritten rules that govern the players’ actions. Though technically against the rules, two players fighting on the ice will only net those players five minutes in the penalty box rather than a lengthy suspension.īut if fighting were just about raw emotion and trying to inflict physical damage on an opponent, it would quickly become distasteful.

#Hockey fight pro game professional

Hockey is the only professional sport in which fighting is allowed. Rather than stepping up to fight Eller and allowing them to settle their differences, Marchand refused thus breaking one of the many unwritten rules of fighting in hockey. Marchand forced a fight the last time these two players met on the Caps’ Opening Night and Eller felt jumped. In so doing, he drew a minor penalty from Eller and gave his team a power play.Īccording to the fighting etiquette, however, Marchand was in the wrong. … I don’t think there’s a lot of integrity in his game.”īut why? Marchand did what most parents tell their children to do when presented with a fight. “I would rather fight him, but can't fight a guy that doesn't want to fight,” Eller said. The entire incident left the Washington Capitals upset as they expressed after the game. Marchand tried to skate away, but Eller held tight, dropped his other glove and continued tugging at Marchand’s collar even as a linesman stepped in between the two players.Ĭlearly Eller wanted to fight, but Marchand wanted no part it and the fight was broken up by a linesman. Eller immediately dropped a glove and grabbed Marchand’s collar. He quickly skated over to Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand at the blue line and the two exchanged a shove.