Fan of fighting in hockey?

[ManLuv4Clears 7]

Well rounded article includes training, the code, love it or hate it views, and history. It's from a unique perspective.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=goons

[Gordie Howe hat trick 110]

Yeah, I saw that. Good read.

[Hank 0]

It was a very interesting read. But those hardcore fans need some serious help.

I mean, having thousands of dollars of recording equipment and wasting how many hours to make fight tapes?

That's insane.

But I have to agree with some of the comments. Fighting was so much better in the 70's and 80's. Guys went toe-to-toe. Now, just like the game on the ice, fighting has gotten so defensive it's turned into a Royce Gracie match. Too much holding and grabbing.

Remember Probie's old bouts? He'd just chuck knuckles. He came from an era where you tried to see who could take the most punches without giving up or going down.

Now it's, land a few shots and then grab the pants to wrestle the guy down. Marty Lapointe has gotten to be the king of that.

[BlakChamber 8]

I was just about to post this. Pretty interesting article. I couldn't imagine spending all that time and money to record hockey fights, but whatever floats their boat.

[Hank 0]

I was just about to post this. Pretty interesting article. I couldn't imagine spending all that time and money to record hockey fights, but whatever floats their boat.

I lilke a good tustle in a hockey game, but the fact that these guys show up ONLY for the fights is disgusting.

Why not just watch UFC or MMA?

I guarentee these guys are all over websites that show bootleg school yard punch-ups.

[ManLuv4Clears 7]

It was a very interesting read. But those hardcore fans need some serious help.

I mean, having thousands of dollars of recording equipment and wasting how many hours to make fight tapes?

That's insane.

But I have to agree with some of the comments. Fighting was so much better in the 70's and 80's. Guys went toe-to-toe. Now, just like the game on the ice, fighting has gotten so defensive it's turned into a Royce Gracie match. Too much holding and grabbing.

Remember Probie's old bouts? He'd just chuck knuckles. He came from an era where you tried to see who could take the most punches without giving up or going down.

Now it's, land a few shots and then grab the pants to wrestle the guy down. Marty Lapointe has gotten to be the king of that.

That is ridiculous the amount of time and energy some of the hardcore fans put into it, I guess they just take it to the next level; no matter how high that level is. But, you aren't kidding about the older era. Probert and Kocur could take and more importanty give. It's interesting how times have changed. I did find the following excerpt interesting:

The league knows violence still sells tickets -- a study published in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology found a correlation between brawling and attendance, and the Web site hockeyfights.com draws 8 million page views per month during hockey season -- but it also knows too much violence gives the sport a black eye.

Edited May 21, 2008 by ManLuv4Clears

[vangvace 12]

That reminds me... I need to log into Fried Hockey again.

[vangvace 12]

It was a very interesting read. But those hardcore fans need some serious help.

I mean, having thousands of dollars of recording equipment and wasting how many hours to make fight tapes?

That's insane.

People spend small fortunes on any hobby or passion.

[Hank 0]

People spend small fortunes on any hobby or passion.

But most hobbies don't include hard-core violence.

I can understand bird watching or stamp collecting, but driving 9 hours to watch two minor-pro players beat up each other in training camp seems kind sadistic.

At least in MMA and boxing the whole goal of the sport is to physically abuse someone. It's like someone going to football games hoping someone gets their leg broken or neck snapped.

To me, this is no different than dog fighting lovers. To be that obsessed with hockey fights is crazy.

Edited May 21, 2008 by Hank

[GMRwings1983 8,794]

Great read!

Mirasty would look awesome in a Wings uniform.

[Gordie Howe hat trick 110]

Great read!

Mirasty would look awesome in a Wings uniform.

I concur.

[BlueMonk 102]

[vangvace 12]

For those interested in reading a section of the story that was cut out...

BORN TO IMPLODE NASAL CARTILAGES

The little girl is adorable. She sits on a pink chair, pointing at Daddy, telling him to leave. It's her first day without a crib, her first day with a room of her own. Alberts hits a button. The picture of his daughter disappears, obscured on his laptop screen by a spreadsheet. "This goes back multiple seasons," he says. "Type in one guy's name, and I'll get a page worth of fights.” A single page lists dozens of hockey brawls. The spreadsheet has hundreds of pages. We're sitting on a couch in the basement of Alberts' Delaware home, in front of a big-screen television, watching a hockey fight tape. KNOCKOUTS AND TKO'S, Volume I. One of Alberts' favorites, it’s a homemade compilation from the regular posters at Fried Chicken. (FYI: almost all

fight tapes are homemade -- think junior high mixtape, only with less Warrant and more weater-grabbing).

The screen swims in violence: knuckles hitting skulls, bodies slumping to the ice, one after another. Drop gloves, climax, repeat. The effect is strangely cartoonish; I half-expect Adam West to skate out in a Bat suit, then pop someone in the nose. POW! Former NHL enforcer Jim Kyte takes one in the kisser. "Poor Kyte, he probably takes the worst KOs of anyone," Alberts says. "Joey Kocur just about killed him there." BOOM! Journeyman tough guy Dennis Bonvie staggers to his feet, bleeding profusely. "The good thing about this tape is that at some point, Bonvie's going to get somebody else."

WAM! WAM! WAM! A minor league goon machine-gun punches his unfortunate dance partner. "Oh, man, the guy in red here got his career ended. So great. During, like, parties and stuff, I'll put this tape on. People stop talking and start watching it. Even people who aren't into hockey. It's like a train wreck."

Some hockey players were put on this Earth to score goals and skate figure 8s and do pretty, pretty things. Others were put here to implode nasal cartilage. Alberts loves the latter group, in part because he relates. At Radford University, he played defenseman on a swing-first, ask-questions-never squad, abiding by the counsel of then-coach Claude Piche: Don't ever stop punching, because the one time you do, you're going to get hit.

"You ever get punched in the throat?" Alberts asks.

Nope.

"It hurts."

Alberts sips a Diet Coke. He is 34, a chemical instrument salesman, has a pregnant wife and a

two-year old daughter. He loves them dearly. He also loves playing beer league hockey. And fighting. His face sports small scars, framing a slightly misshapen nose. (All from pucks and sticks, he claims, somewhat unconvincingly.) He's gone to sales conferences with black eyes. He's fought teammates, fought a guy that was in his wedding, fought his best friend after the

two of them got drunk while watching a fight tape. With his wife at the rink, he once knocked the teeth out of a college kid who didn't have insurance. He ended up paying half of the medical bills. "Who plays hockey without insurance?" he asks, still incredulous.

In deference to his professional status, Alberts makes one concession on the ice: he mostly punches with his left hand. "I busted my right hand a while back," he says. "It's a pain in the ass to type without it."

Alberts' refinished basement is a shrine to hockey fighting, a $40,000 Temple of Goon. A stocked wet bar fills one corner, next to a foosball hockey table. Game-used sticks line the walls, alongside signed pucks and framed jerseys. "That's from Craig Berube's 1,000th game," he says, pointing at a Calgary sweater. "Very rare for any fighter.” A closet contains 50

more, almost all worn by tough guys, a collection 15 years in the making: five from former Washington Capitals slugger Stephen Peat, one from Alexander Vachon – Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby's minor league bodyguard – and another from retired Caps winger Al May, who once led the league in fights.

On a nearby bookshelf – next to, curiously enough, piano sheet music for The Cure's "Wish" – is the February 2000 issue of Tuff Guys magazine. The cover features former NHL'er and born-again Christian Stu Grimson, above the caption ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.

Alberts flips through the pages, stops on the blood-spattered image of Rocky Thompson.

He laughs. "If you look closely, I think they airbrush the blood in," he says. "Thompson's nose

isn't cut. That's totally fake!" Another page. Another giggle. "Look at this, Ken Belanger versus Eric Lacroix. BS! I don't think they're even fighting! For one, Eric Lacroix wouldn't fight anybody ..."

Alberts knows fights. His video collection would shame the Library of Congress, assuming Congressional librarians cared about Wade Belak's collected beatdowns. Eight-hundred VHS tapes take up an entire wall, with handmade labels reading 1994-1995 HALIFAX MOOSEHEADS #1 and 2000-02 VAL D'OR FOREURS and DAVE BROWN #2. The labels even sport tiny team logos.

"A little nuts," Alberts admits. Then again, he used to run a website that had every Capitals brawl on it. Ever. Painstakingly researched by ... him. He's now past that phase. Sort of. Alberts still has a satellite dish and four digital video recorders, the better to cull and store fight footage from dozens of games each week. He still compiles his own season-by-season brawl DVDs (he's up to 20 discs for '07-08). And he still sneaks a camcorder into preseason games that aren't televised. "For a fight fan, the preseason is Christmas," he explains. "You've

got a bunch of guys who are called up from the minors, just looking to make a name for themselves."

The Internet keeps fight fans like Alberts plugged in. Boards buzz around the clock; tête-à-têtes are often uploaded to YouTube on the same night they occur. At Fried Chicken, posters argue about everything: fights that might take place, fights that just took place, fights that took place 15 years ago, hypothetical fights that never actually happened The

underlying topic is always the same – ?quien es mas macho?– and more than a little reminiscent of playground debates pitting Batman against Captain America.

Fight fans generally score brawls four ways: win, edge, draw or loss. They seldom agree on anything else. Alberts points a remote – one of a half-dozen – at the TV screen. Up comes a fight between Caps enforcer Donald Brashear and Penguins counterpart Georges Laraque, the NHL's top two heavyweights. Laraque drops Brashear to one knee, knocks off his helmet, hammers him with left hands. Suddenly, Brashear is back on his skates; he fires three hard

rights and Laraque slips to the ice. Who won? Alberts goes to the board. Waiting is a 10-page thread, with 184 individual posts:

... Did those last two punches from Brash land? Draw on first view ... ... Are people seriously retarded? Brashear DROPPED Laraque with that last punch as CLEAR AS DAY ... ... slo motion, Brashear landed that punch, but it wasn't enough to take him down ...

... I still have the fight on my comp, I'll frame by frame it later ...

"Look at this," Alberts says. "I take fights at face value. A boxing judge doesn't get a chance to slo-mo replays." He shakes his head. "Anybody who slo-mos a fight is a little too into it."

At the start of every hockey season, Alberts wonders if he's too into it. He thinks about quitting. He's getting older, his family is growing, and even though his wife is extremely understanding, he doesn't always have the 5-10 hours a week it takes to compile fights. Yet every year, he sticks with it. Can't help himself. For one, he says, other people produce crap

footage; more to the point, he enjoys the hobby too much to stop.

Alberts calls up an older brawl, between Toronto's Bryan Marchment and Montreal's Craig Rivet. It's a spinning, swinging medley of jackhammer right hands. Marchment's chin strap slides over his mouth. Rivet nearly pulls off his jersey. Both players lose their helmets. Rivet is bleeding, spattering Marchment's back. The punches keep coming. "And they're pounding away at each other!" screams an announcer. Listen closely: You can hear "Eye of the Tiger" playing over the stadium speakers. Alberts hits pause. The screen freezes. He points to Marchment's left sleeve. "You see the tear?" he asks. We walk back to the closet. Alberts pulls out a Marchment jersey. He holds up the sleeve. Same tear. Same jersey. Alberts ordered it immediately after watching the fight. Had to have it. I take a closer look. Something seems off.

What happened to Rivet's blood?<p>

"They spray wash them," Alberts says. "That gets it right out." He sounds disappointed.

Edited May 22, 2008 by vangvace

[devan 0]

Thought you guys might like to see this--Osgood fighting Roy.

And Osgood scoring a goal:

Good luck in the Finals!