Simulation Hockey League

Nothing gets the fans or the team on their feet like a good fight. Two gladiators, locked in combat, doing their best to represent their teams, their cities, and themselves as they fight to the death in the middle of the ice. Okay, its not to the the death but it might be to the concussion, which given the emerging data around CTE is still pretty awful. But nevertheless, the only thing greater than a fight between two forwards, or two defensemen, or a mix, is a goalie versus goalie fight. Two awkward dudes, who clearly never really fight, trying their best to swing at the other guy when they are both covered in enough pads to make the Michelin Man jealous. So when coach needs someone to step up and light a fire under the ass of our team, there's no one else you can really turn to aside from Jon St. Ark, goalie.

I think the first fight that Minamino had was against @Toast's player. Back when Jack Klompus was still on the Manhattan Rage, the two of them dropped the gloves. Despite the lack of experience in tossing mits, Minamino did quite well in taking advantage of the younger player, using the jersey to control his opponent and easily land punches uncontested. While Klompus claims that being jersey'd is cheating, Minamino would argue that Klompus should have just gotten good and just been able to win the fight aways, or just not get jersey'd in the first place. Immediately after the fight, when the two were allowed to play again, which is immediately considering the FHM6 sim and we didn't actually stay off the ice I believe, Minamino won a puck race against Klompus. So all around it was just a rough night for the Rage, and a core memory that will forever be enshrined on discord.

PT Pass

The fighter is going to be patrick toes. Why patrick toes do you ask? well let me tell you about our newest big boy patrick toes. patrick toes is a loved man on the steelhawks, he will do anything for anyone without asking questions. it is insane how much this guy loves hockey. he will fight and cry and do whatever it takes to get his guys going. he will fight for us in this case as we are losing very badly by five goals and patrick will steup up to do whatever it takes to make the boys rally and get us going into the game. patrick is invaluable because of how cool he is on the fights, he will do karate punches and other kinds of fighting styles just to secure a fight for the steelhawks. how cna you not love this guy patrick toes. i hope everyone in the shl finds patrick and gives him a shake of the hand to make him know how loved he is.

Player Prompt:

My player is not a fighter. He is out on the ice to produce goals one way or another with goals or assists. He would not be very effective or helpful to his team if he was serving a five minute penalty for fighting. Matiss Ozolinsh does not have a fight in his career at this time. My player will probably never fight.. They would never fight because they understand how valuable to the team they are in regards to offensive ability and being in the penalty box does not help his team. In regards to fighting in general my player has no interest in fighting but does understand that at times a fight might need to happen, but there are very few circumstances in which it is good to fight. The main reason that a fight would need to happen is if one of the opposing team members took a cheap shot and injured one of your own players and the enforcer on the team wanted to stand up for their teammate and get back at the player that hurt them. Other than that there is not really any point to fighting in hockey.

oh my god this is so crazy they just asked tommy westbrook to go out there and fight a guy. it’s not surprising because tommy west brook is a known fighter around the league. many people have heard of tommy’s fighting with the pigs that he grew up on the farm with. he would pick one of the biggest pigs and say hey man you and me are going to go out back and we’re going to have a little wrestle in the pog pen. of course the pig would be a little concerned but that didn’t stop tommy. he would destroy them every time. it was crazy. so tommy is called on to fight the defense man on the buffalo stampede. to try and bring his team back in it. and what do you know. tommy westbrook wins the fight thanks to all of his arm strength from fighting pigs

HOCKEY PROMPT

I think fighting is good for the game, and a part of the game that should stay, and not be arbitrarily removed. There's always going to be a need for fighting in the sport, mainly for the times that people get a bit too liberal with their actions towards your teammates, and they are either missed by the officials, or not actually penalties, but still generally dirty or frowned upon. If fighting were not allowed in the game, those games would devolve into either a tit for tat where cheap shorts are answered with cheap shots, or just an utter shitshow, as the game and players have no easy way to let off steam and tension from the game that will not result in a game misconduct. Fighting has been going away some naturally in the past several years, as the game has become more skilled, but there will always be the need for fights, even if they are few and far between

Written Task: Is that player going to be you? Is your player a fighter? Have they ever fought before? Would they ever if they haven't yet? Why or why not? If you have fought, do you remember who it was with? Did you win? Who started it? What does your player think about that aspect of the game? If you're a goalie, tell me what it would take to get you out of your net and skating down the ice to get the other goalie! (150+ words)


Is my player a fighter? Is this some kind of joke? Sven Panda is a descendent of the great Juni Panda the once and future king of the Goons. (In my humble Opinion) His one purpose in life is to be the best fighter in the league. Unfortunately so far what that means is that nobody is willing to fight him on the ice. He’s made it through two seasons already and still nobody will face him in a one on one challenge, mano y mano. What does taht mean? It means people know who he is and they’re scared to face him. Sven Panda has no problems being completely physical and he will throw down with anyone, anywhere, anytime they’re willing to. My Player, Sven Panda believes that fighting is just a natural course that a hockey game should take and will prove that if necessarily. He will do whatever it takes to protect his guys on the ice and nobody will push his team around unless they’re willing to face the long arm of the law.

Player Prompt
Loosh likely would not step up to fight. He'd be happy to put his entire heart into his play until the final whistle, but he's never been much of a fighter. As a center focused on playmaking, he's spent no time developing his ability to fight and doesn't intend to have his first fight anytime soon. If he feels incredibly disrespect and push comes to shove, that may be different, but he'd much sooner push for a bleak win than throw his hands at another player. He doesn't have any adversion to fighting and its place within Hockey, but he simply feels his role with regard to sparking inspiration in the team is better suited for goal creation than fighting. Still, though, he understands the importance of fighting with regard to team success. If he finds himself in a fight, he'd certainly do his best to win and support his team, but it'd begin as a personal issue.

Quote: Written Task:  What are your thoughts on fighting in hockey? It's definitely a lot less common these days, do you think that's a good thing? Do you think it has a place in the game, or that it's overdue to disappear entirely? Maybe you wish it happened more often? In your opinion, what circumstances justify a hockey fight? Specific things? Any time you want for entertainment's sake? Tell me your thoughts! (150+ words)

I think fighting in hockey is a pretty interesting issue. Personally I am not necessarily against fighting, but I can also recognize the safety risk that comes with it. Bare knuckle fighting is already dangerous as it is, when you put guys on sharpened blades on a sheet of rock hard ice it makes it even more so. I hate the idea of someone getting knocked out by a hard right hook and then falling and smashing their head again on the ice. Someone could die from something like that and honestly at this point that's probably what it would take for fighting to be outright banned in hockey. But it also has it's uses in policing the game a bit. Refereeing is wildly inconsistent in hockey and we've seen things get out of hand tons of times when referees don't make the correct calls. Fighting allows the players the ability to take care of things themselves and in a way sort of keeps things from getting out of hand. It's a bit of a deterrent from opponents doing something dirty like running the goal or throwing an illegal check to the head or from behind. And of course, I'm not sure there's anything that gets the crowd going more than a fight does.

Teddy Murphy has been known to get in a scrap or two in his day.  Dating all the way back to juniors he's been involved in 37 fights and is well aware of the boost they can provide a team in any situation.  Starting the season with a game where the boys fall down so big is as good a time as any to recall the days of old and punch a motherfucker in the face.  Despite what's happened to Teddy in his old age and the atrophy of his fighting abilities he isn't afraid to throw hands.  Having logged so many fights under his belt there isn't one that stands out above the rest.  The opponents are names, faceless, and too many to count.  That last part may have been a lie considering that there are at most 37 of them, but you get the point.  They all suck and Teddy is perfect in the octagon.

Through two and a third seasons in the J, Sean Davies has never been in a fight, so it’s probably not going to be him stepping up. That’s just not his mindset. He loves the physical side of the game and is always down to bring the hits, but a one-on-one boxing match on the ice is not his cup of tea. Sure, if push came to shove, he could definitely drop the gloves and rough someone up a bit, but for the most part he would defer to cheering on his teammate while they brawled. He doesn’t hate that side of the game, and he has to admit it always gets him fired up when a fight breaks out, but he’s never really felt compelled to start one. With that said, Davies is pretty sure teammate Dusty Rhodes would probably be more than willing to fight. Given his toughness and aggression, Dusty is a guy you wouldn’t want to mess with. He’s a bad man, and Davies is glad they’re on the same team. He wouldn’t want to deal with that freight train coming at him.

As a fan I would be lying if I didn't say I didn't enjoy a hockey fight from time to time. Their the best way that a player on the ice today has to make sure both sides are playing to the unwritten rules and to keep guys accountable. In any sport or any team exercise there's always frustration and aggression and a need to "get it out" and hockey remains unique in that it still allows fighting; I think that it will never disappear entirely from the game but will become so 'unfriendly' either through Game Misconducts or suspensions that their impact will be minimal. As a fan, I do applaud the league for at least starting to if not making the actual steps to focus on player safety. Change comes in frustratingly small increments but I think that were starting to realize if we want the stars of this generation and those of the next generation to have long healthy careers and lives following them, we need to play it safe.

Hockey Prompt

Fighting in hockey is a bit of a sticky subject and probably will be for a long time, but there really is only a matter of time until it is out of the sport to be honest. There is very little justifiable reason for it in reality, but it is currently in the game, some of that to do with the culture, but also the way the game is managed as well. A lot of people get away with a lot of things both during the season, but especially during the playoffs, and although people always say "the game is fast", the refs usually leave a lot of calls out of the game that any player outside pro hockey would be called for immediately. Part of that is down to the product itself, fighting is as much hockey as the one timer historically, and it will probably take another generation of high-skill players to come through to further separate the modern game from fighting. As much as some current fans don't want to hear it, the nearest comparable you can think of is soccer/EU football. Technically it is a contact sport, but pretty much any contact that puts a player at any risk of falling is called a foul, while if you go back 30-40 years the game was a lot less "soft", the way the game is played now is extremely different to then. We see this change in hockey today, the game is faster, less about big hits and more about speed. The more the league goes that direction, focusing on skill, the more the league will be pushed to protect players more and more, and eventually the culture of fighting will be extremely rare. I don't know how long it will take, but eventually fights will basically only happen in playoffs, and then eventually almost never at all, and then they will be outlawed. It really will only take another 1-2 serious injuries during a fight or a decade or two more of skill development and the penalty for fighting will probably end up going up to a game misconduct, to a suspension. Maybe in a hundred years it is gone, but the idea that putting a multi-million dollar asset at risk of an injury cause someone decided to rip their helmet off and beat them up probably won't sit well as franchise valuations go up and up and up too.

I believe that fighting has it's place in hockey. I do not know if the reduction in fighting from the 1980s mullet brawling days is a good thing from the side of entertainment in blue collar America. It certainly has legitimized it as a sport and made it more professional and respected. I do like how fights now a days are significantly less theatric and all over the place and more of an enforcer if you break the rules of hockey as in going after new rookies or headhunt the rookies that there is usually someone on the team that is skilled enough to go after you as well.  I do remember growing up and watching amature hockey games  or semi-professional games and seeing that at least once a game there was usually a fight for entertainment but it was not like todays fighting where it is a situation where you spray the goalie or run into them but more so a we are at center ice, let us give these fans a show and drop the gloves at whistle. But for the growth of the sport and making it more serious, it is probably a good thing.  

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