Aggression can lead to physical fights on the ice CHAPTER ONE FIGHTS ON THE ICE Hockey is known as a physical sport Players slam into each other or push and shove as they fight for the puck From time to time that physical play can boil over into fighting It may seem odd to fans of other sports where fighting is almost universally banned But in hockey many people argue that it's just part of the game The first official rules about fighting were established in 1922. That's when the National Hockey League NHL decided that a five minute penalty was appropriate for fighting Referees are flexible with how they interpret those rules however Some brawls can result in 10 minute misconduct or even game misconduct penalties
In the 1970s hard nosed players from a few teams most notably the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins gave the NHL a bad reputation Fighting was getting out of control Some hockey officials worried that the game was becoming secondary to the brawling on the ice An official separates two college players
COLLEGE RULES College players receive five minute major penalties for fighting just like NHL players However each player also earns a game disqualification The players are ejected from the game and not allowed to play in the next game This rule makes fighting less common in college games But in today's NHL fighting isn't the problem that it once was NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in 2016 that fighting is at the lowest level I believe in the history of the game Fights dropped from 734 in the 2008-09 season to 372 in the 2016-17 season That's a decrease of nearly 50 percent in just eight years The reasons for the decline of fighting have a lot to do with the evolution of the sport Traditionally NHL teams had on their roster at least one enforcer Enforcers were usually players whose main role was to intimidate opponents Recently however teams have focused more on skill than on fighting Between 2010 and 2015 the Chicago Blackhawks won three Stanley Cup titles with a roster filled with fast and talented players As other teams have copied that blueprint the role of the enforcer has become obsolete
