They are thugs. Read ekkodesign’s post, you don’t see NHL players running around at odd times of the night while illegally possessing handguns and shooting them in the air outside strip clubs. You don’t see hockey players jumping in the stands to go pounce on some fan that was trash talking him. The violence in hockey is part of the game. How can you say it isn’t when you “don’t follow hockey one bit?” You can’t. It grew up with the game. Like the hard hits in the NFL, it’s just part of the game. Don’t say it isn’t, because you don’t know that.
You, Atma, are the racist; and you’ve done it before.
I’d also like Earl Sleek to comment on this, if he see’s it.

SkipT’s also blatantly wiser than me in this arena- probably in general too!

Tell me this isn’t a blatant double standard and I’ll show you a person who is being actively ignorant.

Dude, we root for sports teams. That in itself is actively ignorant.

Besides, I’m not one to equate the Bertuzzi incident with 4 nightly fights—that’s a very rough generalization. I feel like I can be for one and against another without losing much sleep.

 I’ll have to agree, hockey makes white people look awfully stupid. NBA players get along much better with the other team, they seem a lot more intelligent.

the media’s racist agenda against blacks in hockey.
right.

There’s a larger issue here than the role of fighting in hockey. As a hockey expert you can tell me how it’s part of the game and that’s fine. It’s something I’m not qualified to really argue.

But as a hoops junkie and follower of sports, racial politics, etc I can note that:

• every night on Sportscenter I’m “treated” to a handful of bloody glorified violence in the NHL and it’s a head scratcher how it’s considered a family show
• in the hockey promos that I see on TV they try to hype up the game by displaying these barbaric fights- so it’s integral to it’s marketing of “tough white dudes”
• the NBA has the stigma of being the “thug” league even though there’s a tiny fraction of the physical violence that you see in the NHL and every knows the little fights in the NBA are mostly a joke and epically blown out of proportion
• racism plays a tremendous role in what the NHL compared to the NBA can get away with

We could easily have combat basketball (see Riley, Pat), but that’s not going to fly in the NBA because of the racial makeup of the players and the racist attitudes and beliefs of America. If there’s a rare fight in the NBA the whole league is considered “ghetto”, but if there’s a fight in the NHL the individuals in the brawl are considered “tough”. Yes, the fun world in which we live in.

Well one, I think you are an idiot in how you phrased your question.

Aren’t you the one who was critiquing how this wasn’t a productive and constructive discussion? Good job.

And two, you haven’t really thrown out anything for a valid discussion other than some base insults.

Right. Well since you haven’t addressed any of the very valid critiques that I or others have the burden that seems like a real deal cop out.

So instead of getting into this any furthur, I will just point to a good article I read yesterday.

YOU DON’T KNOW STEPHON MARBURY, “THE QUINTESSENTIAL SELFISH ATHLETE”
http://sportsonmymind.com/2008/12/03/you-dont-know-stephon-marbury/

Very good read.

It is indeed an excellent article. The author of that piece Modi is my longtime blog-buddy. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Modi had a similar take than I did about the racist double standards facing the NBA and NHL.

Your entire argument is planted with seeds of ignorance. Your crass stereotype that every single player in the NHL is white, is frankly disgusting. It may not be as ethnically diverse as the NBA, per se, but the only person making this a race issue is you.

Um, I don’t think it’s only me. Nowhere have I said “every single player in the NHL is white”. It’s predominantly white. Just like the NBA is predominantly black.

Secondly, to sit here and lie about what you see on sportscenter and what not, is another reason why your argument is holding little to no water.

Lie about what I see on Sportscenter? How would you know what I see on Sportscenter?

The only people who care to seek out the fights that happen within the NHL, are fans themselves.

So the fans are the bloodthirsty barbaric ones?

It’s not a race issue, it’s a culture issue.

We’ve all heard this sort of cultural rhetoric time and time again from the right wing of the Republican party. Post 70’s in this country cultural critiques has been used to mask racist critiques. This is not a new game.

If you feel that it’s too barbaric, perhaps you feel that way about MMA. I guess you wouldn’t though, because of guys like Cheikh Congo and Anderson Silva. As long as there are people of color playing, there isn’t a problem? Give me a break, man.

Right and where did I say this?
I will say I’m conflicted about how barbaric boxing, MMA, UFC are. On one hand they are incredibly violent and appeal to the lowest urges and impulses of people kind. But on the other hand there’s an art and skill behind them. These are incredibly well trained athletes. That’s the sport. If someone’s going to argue that these are barbaric sports however, I don’t think I could come up with a solid reasoning to challenge their position.

But as my man FJ pointed above how is a fistfight endemic to hockey as a sport? We’ve all noted that the pushes, checks, etc are part of the game, but why the constant “street fight on ice” sideshow that you claim fans lust after? Why is that acceptable but the 90’s rough housing of Rileyball on the Knicks and the Pistons Bad Boys was “bad for the league” and “too thug”? Keep in mind there was nothing there that even approached the nightly violence in the NHL today.

You’ve already said you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Actually I said I admittedly don’t follow hockey one bit.

Why do you feel the need to play the race card so often? Not everything is as cut and dry as you’d like to make it, buddy. Not everyone is out to get us. Hockey is hockey, deep rooted in it’s history and it has been for years. You can’t just call it racist because the NBA choose to have a different decorum for it’s players to live by.

Racism isn’t some card you just play with. It’s a real and tangible problem still facing this country (yes hard for many to understand even though the moderate Obama just got elected),

My point is that the NBA didn’t have a choice in decorum for it’s players to live by. The NHL can succeed with nightly bloody violence because of it’s predominantly white player-force, but the NBA doesn’t have that opportunity because it constantly has to avoid the stereotypes of young black males prevalent in this country. Even the slightest slip (the Melo-Nate slapfight or any rough foul) creates the biggest stir and cultural blame game. It’s about the individual thug in the NHL, but about the entire association of thugs in the NBA- why?

Mike Grier is a god damn boss, dude. Talk to him about how hard Blacks have it in the NHL.

Props to Grier. Again one isolated person of color in the NHL does nothing to disprove the points people have been outlining here.

  No it’s more like a wanna be of a cold weather sport. Skateboarding is a warm weather sport.

It’s all within the context of the game. And as I said earlier, fights are extremely rare, at a rate of one every two games, and take place between mostly fringe players on the roster.

It’s a very small part of a physical, brutal game. It’s a fierce contact sport, like rugby or MMA or whatever. I don’t think you can compare it to basketball.

no proof of it.

frankly only came back because one of our shared readers was banned from the site after he voiced his opinion in this thread. I’m not asking why, I’m not questioning your ability to boot people at your discretion. I’m here because someone’s voice was taken away.

Sorry man but that’s distorting reality. That commenter was warned 3 times that swearing is not allowed on GSoM, yet still continued to do so. It’s a family show and that’s integral to the character of this community. That’s always been the rule here and what ensures we can have a constructive and intelligent discussion, which this has mostly been.

Please don’t distort something you don’t know anything about. If you’re even going to slightly posit that a commenter’s voice was silenced her because I personally didn’t agree with their views you need only look at the majority of the comments in this thread that critique with varying levels of success that points I and others have layed out. They’re far more intelligent and well-reasoned that the commenter you’re blindly trying to support. Don’t you think if your reasoning was true we’d “silence” those first?

People have been banned here for profanity and personal attacks even when I or the other writers of the site actually agreed with their underlying arguments.

Fighting in hockey is part of the sports roots. Fighting in basketball is not. I’ve layed it all out in various portions of this thread. We’re running in circles now.

FJ has asked numerous times why fighting is so critical to a sport where the goal is to get a puck into a net and I don’t see any good answers.

I’ve layed out how hoops has had a rough-housing past, but not a single person has addressed it.

DJ Fuzzy Logic has clearly outlined the inequalities in what’s deemed appropriate for different racial groups to exercise their emotions.

We’re running in circles here precisely because you and many others have failed to address these points. Look up and down this thread- I and others have acknowledged good points that challenged my thinking.

"Barbaric", "San Jose Dolphins", "racial makeup of players and fans", "thuggery".

"Barbaric"- See below for the definition and application. Seems to fit the NHL to me.

"San Jose Dolphins"- Obviously that’s a joke. Look at the context. A bad one probably, but a joke nevertheless. If that offends you, then hockey fan’s claims to hyper-masculinity because of the silly violence in their sport seem especially dumbfounded.

"racial makeup of players and fans"- That’s a critique. Nothing racist or shocking about it. There’s nothing wrong with analyzing race in this country or having a viable discussion about it. Maybe that’s not allowed on Fear the Fin, but it’s always produced some interesting discussions here.

"thuggery"- See above. Blez has even conceded that it is a thug sport. The pics below that a hockey fan used to glorify the rough-housing in the NHL further demonstrate that this league markets itself on thuggery.

These are all shock words. Next time please approach the very sensitive subject of racism with a little more class and research.

Next time please carefully read the very intelligent points before making these silly allegations that are both classless and done without any evidence. There’s plenty of good stuff in this thread from all sides and folks from all over. Seems pretty classy to me.

Yeah, but those are the only fights that happen in the NBA, as compared to the many, many one-on-one fights that occur in the NHL. I think you could make a much better case if you compared the NBA’s fights to bench-clearing brawls in baseball.

That’s also a great point. There does exist a double standard in the way baseball brawls and basketball brawls are portrayed and received by middle American and the media. Baseball junkies can jump in with specifics here but as I understand/ see it:

• baseball bench clearing brawls happen way more frequently than the NBA, yet the MLB is a “goold ol’ boy” league and the NBA is the “thug league”
• the penalties for participating in these baseball brawls and leaving the dugout pale in comparison to the lengthy and heavy fines that David Stern and company mandate in the NBA

Fighting in hockey is a lot like bare knuckle boxing used to be, where guys don’t get knocked out because fighters can’t put their whole weight behind a punch. It’s 1,000x safer than boxing and fighters hardly ever suffer from long-term effects.

That’s all good and fine, but I still don’t buy that legalized fighting in a sport that isn’t even about fighting is both very unnecessary and crude.

Who actually sees the NBA as a bunch of black guys running all "thugged" out and jumping each other.

Umm, a lot of people?

1. Did you cut class when they were going over the teachings of MLK and Gandhi? This is the kind of foolish thinking that gets people killed and starts wars.

2. Look above- 4 fights in one night and no major outcry from the media or fans? If there were 4 fist fights in the NBA on one night, the league would be done. Banned from ESPN and would instantly lose much of its corporate fanbase.

MMA, boxing, etc are sports about fighting. FJ asked above (and has yet to get a rationale response) about why fighting is integral to a game where you’re supposed to get a puck in a net. This is getting repetitive.

3. Not sure what you’re trying to say here. Magic was one of the classiest on court players and a great face of the league for over a decade. Now he’s one of the most impressive entrepreneurs and role models in this country. I’m not saying he hasn’t made mistakes, but he’s a great ambassador for the game- aside from the fact that he’s a little painful to watch on TV as a hoops analyst!

We basically agree except I think you’re comparing basketball to the wrong sport. The part of hockey you’re discussing is much more comparable to boxing or the UFC than basketball. The hockey that Sidney Crosby plays is much different than the hockey that George Laraque plays and I don’t think you know that because you admittedly haven’t watched much hockey. Compare basketball to a sport like baseball or soccer and you have a much better case.

I’m with you that there is also a double standard between the NBA and MLB, but for you to try to segment the NHL into artificial thuggery and non-thuggery lines does nothing to address to points we’ve been outlining. We can segment the NBA into rough-housers and softies too. What’s key is to examine the perceptions of the leagues at the macro levels as belilaugh has so eloquently explained.

And to be fair, I don’t know how you can say, "The NHL is an absolutely barbaric league that gets a pass for its thuggery because of the racial makeup of both its players and fans," and then act surprised when people get defensive.

I’ve enjoyed this discussion immensely and I’ve learned a lot very quickly about hockey. There’s no surprise about people having very different passionate views on the topic. BUT there is tremendous surprise on the poor reading comprehension skills put on display here by the visiting hockey fans.

Like I said:
Half of the commenters here don’t even grasp the points being made and have tried to turn it into some silly "NHL players are tough" "but there’s some minority players in the NHL" "the NHL is not racist" debate, which no one is even contending.

It’s pretty embarrassing to see people putting up these straw man’s and posting silly comments and arguments that have nothing to do with anything people are discussing. All these weak lobs “he’s a racist” without any rationale or evidence are absolutely foolish.

It’s also funny to see you take some sort of moral high ground after your recent post on Battle of California (Parros-Shelley: Manly Men Doing Manly Things) where you:

• glorified the inane fighting in the NHL which does nothing to disprove my claims that the NHL is an absolutely barbaric league with bloodthirsty fans that gets a pass for its thuggery
• immaturely called people at Golden State of Mind “pussies”

Real classy. It’s no wonder we’ve had to sift through so much garbage and low IQ comments in this thread from the visiting commenters from Battle of California and Fear the Fin. You’re making your community and league look bad. Good job. Meanwhile we’re trying to get a good discussion going over here which for the most part has been excellent.

Hoops fans 1, Hockey fans 0

Just removed GSOM link from my blog, I in no way want to be affiliated with this moron.

The NHL is an absolutely barbaric league that gets a pass for its thuggery because of the racial makeup of both its players and fans in stark contrast to the unfairly targeted and criminalized NBA

like a conspiracy? i dont want to put words in your mouth so i want to assume you just mean that a cultural bias is possibly at work here. not that the league admin is in cahoots with the media with an evil plan to make blacks look like violent maniacs while shrugging off white guys pummeling each other.

i would argue that yes, as much as dunking is an unnecessary but entertaining aspect of the game of basketball, so is fighting an unnecessary aspect of hockey.

could we argue that because you can score points in basketball without jumping off the court and slamming the ball into the hoop that it is just indicative of black people wanting to showboat and have the limelight? i think that if anything, the NBA has more of a rep of being a prima donna league, the 1 or 2 stars per team are focused on with a second class of players who exist to pass and guard while the stars make amazing plays.

if fighting in hockey is “barbaric” (terribly loaded word, not really helpful for an open discussion) than we can also say that dunking in basketball is egomaniacal.
both barbarism and egomaniasm are character flaws, not culturally acceptable, and not helpful to the sports we love.
should we eliminate all unnecessary aspects of our sports? what about a literal coin toss in football? what a waste of time why not just have the computer sort it out at random as the schedule is made.
what about the 7th inning stretch? messes up the flow keep the game rolling, who watches 6 hours of baseball anyways?

you see, these flavors of our sports are things built in from their inception. the traditions and history are what make the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL quite wonderful and unique from say the arena football league, or Roller Hockey International. correct me if i am wrong, but basketball was not always a sport predominantly played pro by black athletes. did the league allow fighting then?
hockey has always controlled but allowed fighting. basketball never has.

will people read into this many different things? yeah, some do. is that perception the truth of the situation? i do not believe so.
please do not perpetuate racial division by creating arguments that only exist in perception