from Alec Campbell of wral,

Hockey fights are dumb. They’re lame, they’re selfish and there’s nothing in sports, besides a pitcher intentionally throwing at a batter, that reduces us to the worst, most common denominator version of ourselves like a hockey fight. We don’t want to admit it because we’ve been conditioned to believe they’re a necessary part of the game, but they aren’t.

The benefits are fleeting at best, and there’s no evidence that they correlate to goals or wins. In last night’s case the Washington Capitals won the fight but they got run out of PNC Arena to to tune of 5-0. The negatives, meanwhile, are far more impactful.

I was sick to my stomach seeing the Carolina Hurricanes’ Andrei Svechnikov get knocked out, literally, in a fight with Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin midway through the first period of Game 3 of their first-round playoff series.

conitnued