Why are hockey players allowed to duke it out ,while basketball and football players can’t?

: Why are hockey players allowed to duke it out ,while basketball and football players can’t?
If Basketball and football players were to duke it out like hockey players ,they would get kicked out the lead, while hockey players are glorified for it.

Do you think if someone like Mike Tyson ever played hockey they would still allow those fights to take place?

Answers and Views:

Answer by The Quack Attack
Because there is no etiquette to fighting in those sports. They’d just wrestle around on the floor. A hockey fight, you almost always know what you’re getting into, and very few times do they lead to injury. It works in this sport.

Answer by JuanB
Why do they allow mike Tyson to duke it out in boxing? Or punching and kicking in the UFC? Because like hockey they are meant to be contact sports. The thing about the wimpy sports you name is basketball is non contact sport, and football spends half it’s time between plays. So it would be very difficult for them to start fighting each other when the game isn’t on. Same as hockey, they don’t start fighting before play starts.

As for Mike Tyson playing hockey. Thing is, Tyson never learnt to box on skates. They tried this decades ago, and a boxer on skates gets pommeled against a hockey player. Not worth even trying, waste of a slot on your roster.

Answer by The Original Six
Because hockey players understand the word Respect.
Football fights would look ridiculous, with no respect, bunch of blind, dirty hits.
And Basketball has too many fouls already to dare allow a fight

Answer by likesfemalefeet
Hockey is a game in which you carry a lethal weapon with you. I would rather have a short fight, then take a stick across the head.

Answer by Leafsfan29-Embrace the drought!
Fights in the NBA and NFL usually end up being “all-in” brawls…you don’t see that anymore in hockey (there hasn’t been a bench-clearing fight in well over 20 years); baseball is the same way.

Fighting is against the rules of hockey at any level (including the NHL)…however the officials will allow two willing combatants (key phrase) to go at it if they both consent to the fight (meaning they will break in if someone does not want to fight or gets jumped) and let them go until they either stop or until one or both combatants tap out or are put in a vulnerable position.

NFL fights usually end up with third/fourth/fifth+++ men involved. NBA fights are laughable slap-and-tickle fests or throwing a haymaker from behind and then take off running. If you actually made guys square up and fight (and not hit from behind and run away) you’d never see fighting happen again (for the sake of arguement a consentual fight was a technical foul AND a personal foul and the player had to sit out 4 minutes of game time but weren’t ejected); as for the NFL, going to this standard would eliminate the spitting, stepping on guys in a pile, eye-gouging, and the like (oh, and in the NFL they’d be taking their helmets off to fight).

Derek Boogaard had no discernable hockey skill but made a living playing two minutes a night as a fighter. As far as any professional fighter becoming a hockey player, they’d have to learn how to skate, and more importantly, how to fight wearing skates and hockey equipment and how to fight within the code of fighting (not the easiest things to pick up).

Answer by VeggieTart — Let’s Go Caps!
Hockey is a fast-paced game (unlike football, which is pretty much played in spurts,or basketball), with players colliding. Fighting isn’t the purpose of the game, but an element thereof. Emotions can run high, although I suppose that’s true of any sport. While technically not “allowed”–players do incur at least a five-minute penalty and sometimes more–fighting is accepted in hockey as long as both participants are willing, and there are rules against another player joining the fracas.

As for Mike Tyson, he honed his skills beating the snot out of someone who was likewise beating the snot out of him. Had he learned to skate and stick-handle, he might not have the same fearsome punch, although maybe he would have skills as an enforcer.

You must have never seen a John Erskine fight.

Answer by LJ
Well see when you see a football or basketball fight it’s usually a “brawl” where a bunch of people run in and throw wild punches without looking. They basically sucker punch people.

In hockey you see fighters ask if they would like to go and if they accept then they will give them time to take their gloves off and square up, and the fight is over once you hit the ice.

For fighting to work you need rules, otherwise it turns into brawls and people get hurt because other people take cheap shots.

Now, if Mike Tyson ever played hockey he would never make it on the ice. He can’t even skate, and if you can’t ice skate how are you supposed to fight on skates? All you do is tug his jersey once and he falls over.

Answer by Jason S
The main reason is no other sport has the same combination of these two things: speed/continuous action and physicality. Basketball is fast and mostly continuous action, but it’s nowhere near as physical except maybe the odd elbow. Teammates don’t have to worry so much about opponents trying to injure Kobe. Football is every bit as physical as hockey, but not so continuous action. Play is constantly being blown dead or the QB is out of it as soon as he goes down or fumbles the ball. Can you imagine if Tom Brady did run around the field by himself for several minutes at a time and any linebacker who felt like it could run him? That’s what it’s like for a star player in hockey.

Now, that doesn’t mean fighting is necessary in hockey. But it does mean that policing players taking cheap shots is much more difficult because of the nature of the game. Fighting is seen as holding players accountable. The other option would be to regulate hitting much more strictly, which people are reluctant to do.

As for Tyson, well first, he’d have to be able to skate, which is never easy for big men. But most importantly, you’re confusing consensual fighting with predatory fighting. Hockey doesn’t allow players to attack each other. If a guy ran around attacking people he’d be severely suspended or banned from the game. No one would fight Tyson.

Answer by viphockey4
If football and basketball were as tough and strict on fighting as the NHL is you MIGHT have an argument. In hockey and hockey only are the penalties so severe for fighting that they can make you play with less men than the opponent. If in a basketball brawl each guy had to sit out for 5 minutes without a replacement (the rules in hockey require it) we wouldnt see some of these silly girl fights we see on the basketball courts all too often. Imagine if a basketball player throws a punch he sits without a sub for 5 minutes…..5 on 4 basketball. Wouldnt that be fun? Ditto for the NFL….when Suh stomped the OL imagine if the Lions had to play the rest of the series with only 10 defenders. Why is it that ignorance requires us to explain that hockey and ONLY hockey takes swift and game changing punishment for fights? Hockey players arent glorified for fighting…..if they were as glorified as you suggest then why does the NHL promote skilled players and never promote their “sheriffs”? Hate makes ones ignorance shine in a way maybe they dont realize……at no time in history has hockey at any level “allowed” any player under any circumstance to “duke it out”. And only hockey takes stiff decisive action against fighting…..the other sports simply allow the other players to continue on as if nothing ever really happened….why is that? Could it be they are softer on fighting than hockey….sounds like it to me!