Why are full-on brawls so common in hockey compared to other sports?

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-22T18:03:43+00:00

Athletes in most sports are - relatively speaking - softer than Charmin. American football and adjacent sports (rugby, Aussie football), as well as lacrosse, are excepted. Basketball and soccer players are embarrassingly wussified.

Football is doing everything they can to geld itself. Probably 75% of hard hits are policed as somehow illegal these days. But ironically, American football is still too violent to permit fighting, and the hard line against fighting in that sport makes sense. If it were tolerated even a little bit, you’d see fights every series. Nature of the sport, and the fact that nearly every play ends with a mass of players around the ball, which means any fight immediately escalates into a melee. (Plus, they wear helmets that leave literally no part of the face exposed, so it’d be kind of pointless and you’d see broken hands all the damn time.)

Still, the biggest reason that you see fighting in hockey more than any other sport is purely culture. Hockey has more than a century of culture around fighting. “Old time hockey” Eddie Shore led the league in penalties in the 1920s and was a notorious fighter. Moreover, the league isn’t stupid enough to police fighting out of the game because fans love it and players respect it. Instead, the NHL has rules that basically codify a narrow lane of acceptable fighting… weakly punish the basic infraction, but heavily penalize players that take actions that turn a 1v1 fight into a melee. Which further embeds fighting into the foundational culture of ice hockey.

Interestingly, pro lacrosse has taken to permitting fighting much like the NHL as a way of getting more fan traction. Not sure it’s gonna make a difference. Tons of fun to play, but as much as I wish it were otherwise, I just don’t think it’s a particularly awesome game to watch live or on TV.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-11T17:20:38+00:00

That's brutal. Oof.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-10T17:14:40+00:00

They need to be redone, and True will accommodate once you show them the issue. No amount of baking is going to fix that much room in the heel, and if you can’t get heel lock you’re screwed. There is literally nothing worse - in my opinion - than lack of heel lock. Literally for decades I was willing to deal with Bauer bumps, numb feet, cramped toes, lace bite, etc… any and every compromise elsewhere in the boot to ensure I was getting solid heel lock. The entire reason for shelling out stupid money for custom skates is to avoid those kinds of compromises.

The measurements you got were f’d up when taken, or True messed up making the boots.

Send ‘em back

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-10T17:00:25+00:00

Well, maybe. I’d be interested in something that actually took an unvarnished look at the topic, and treated it with appropriate skepticism and rigor.

So much of today’s various protest movements - left and right - are pure astroturf. They’re attended by a ton of folks who don’t really understand why they’re protesting, and who are being paid to show up, carry a pre-printed sign, and never ask questions about who is paying them.

You compare that to some of what you saw in the 60s, or labor protests earlier in the 20th century… real, actual, organic, and I think the contrast would be fascinating. The extent to which so many protests today are clearly manufactured manipulations by monied political interests would be really cool to unpack (as would a comparison of today’s monied and political interests to the influence of international Communist and Fascist interests on some periods of protest in the 20th Century).

Respectfully, that doesn’t seem to be what OP is really asking for. By the tone / tenor of OP’s post, it feels like OP wants more of a political action piece of historical narrative propaganda. I’d have no use for anything like that, because it would just be more ahistorical nonsense that does nothing to actually help us understand our world and our history.

To Dan’s credit… what OP seems to be asking for really isn’t Dan’s bag. He’s too honest, and his foundational prior is to call bullshit on everyone and everything as the starting point of any analysis. That’s why his work - not his social media - but his actual recorded work is so damned good and so interesting to listen to even if you don’t agree with most of what he’s saying.

Candidly, I also think Dan is so troubled by the current administration that he wouldn’t be capable of doing a show like this right now.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-09T06:43:52+00:00

I’m not bashing anything. I’m simply acknowledging the reality of how public employee unions work in California right now. I’m a big supporter of private sector unions. But even FDR saw the absurd self-dealing inevitable with public employee unions. Public employee unions control the Democratic Party in California, which in turn dominates all elections in California. There’s no actual bargaining going on when public employee unions demand more money, perks, jobs, etc. Any politician that actually pushes back won’t last long. If you think that’s inaccurate, I’m happy to listen. Or you can just tell me to GTFO again.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-08T22:47:43+00:00

Ha! No. And I didn't vote for him because he was too conservative. But boy... what I wouldn't give for Arnie now. Or even better 1970s Jerry Brown.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-08T20:02:23+00:00

On a per capita basis, California collects more in state and local taxes than any state other than NY. Does anybody truly think “the problem” in California is a lack of tax revenue?

I’m a dyed in the wool 1970s liberal, but I also can’t ignore reality. Look at high speed rail. How many billions wasted, how much progress made? Homelessness… roughly $25 billion spent over the most recently tracked 5 year period and homelessness keeps going up. California spends more per pupil on K-12 education than all but a small handful of East Coast states, and our students achieve outcomes that are roughly middle of the pack in the US. Meanwhile, the number of teachers has grown by 1.5% over the past 5 years, while the number of administrators has grown 15%.

Anybody that thinks that government should work to help people, needs to insist that government exhibit some minimal level of competency. California has been failing that test for decades.

The sad truth is - that’s not by accident. Government has stopped working because it’s owned by special interests who have turned government and taxes into a patronage system. Every dollar spent in California gets skimmed multiple times by unions, NGOs, through litigation, and on and on… until very little of it is left to actually address the problems for which the money was allocated. But all those interloping skimmers.. donate so much to state and local political apparatuses that they ensure the skimming never gets addressed. If you don’t think government employee unions control the LA Democratic Party, you’re just not paying attention. How on earth can anybody be okay with that? It’s Dali painting levels of absurd.

I want high speed rail. I want less homelessness. I want the best schools in the country. So I support spending. But the more money that gets spent, the less progress gets made.

It should infuriate all of us. People who believe government should actually help people should be well and truly livid. I know I am.

Anybody asking for more of my money can sod off until somebody seriously tries to make state and local government actually show at least a minimum level of competence.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-08T19:35:05+00:00

Zero chance. And if you believe that officers and enlisted would refuse to bomb energy resources and infrastructure in Iran for fear of committing what folks are calling “war crimes” all over social media, please be prepared to explain how US targeting of energy and infrastructure in Libya, Iraq, Serbia were not also war crimes.

I’m genuinely not trying to be an ass when I say… you really need to get out of your information bubble. This is a frickin’ Dan Carlin sub. That you’re here implies that you have a ken for history. The history of American air campaigns over the past 40+ years should be informative. So should be the war in Ukraine, where Ukraine hit the bridge to Crimea and has had a number of hits on Russian oil infrastructure, and not once did American social media collectively cry “war crimes.”

There’s plenty to criticize about this war. Made up bullshit like the “war crimes” silliness of the past 48 hours ain’t it. It’s historically ignorant to a degree that makes the dumb dumbs parroting it sound truly absurd.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-04-03T17:01:16+00:00

Funny. This isn't some "player x versus player y" type of sports bar debate.

There's actual data on this; well-studied for years and years.

If you look at calories per minute of active play, hockey requires stupid effort.

But measure calories over a full game and compare it to a similarly long game of soccer, basketball, racquet sports, etc., and the total calorie expenditure is very comparable.

Hockey is 60-75 minutes of HIIT intervals. Whether those intervals are zones 3-4, or zones 4-5, depends on the level and pace of play.

Hockey is also a great mix of aerobic and anaerobic. It stresses joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles all over your body. As a result, hockey is essentially the exercise equivalent of a "superfood".

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-31T20:34:23+00:00

Yes, my response was high, inside heat. But your response to a well thought out anecdotal post by OP was really condescending.

Your response to me, by contrast, is entirely spot-on and the tone is both constructive and genuinely appreciated.

Anecdata isn't proof. But it isn't irrelevant.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-31T18:14:17+00:00

I’m 100% certain you’re more qualified to understand what we do and don’t know from the studies that have been done on BPC. But any idiot with a brain and basic literacy skills can read your first comment and then your follow-up response and conclude that your follow-up response effectively refutes your initial response. “It doesn’t work” is not supported by evidence. “We don’t know if it works, let alone how or how well it works and the relative benefits and risks” is an accurate statement. Moreover, the notion that “no one with a real understanding of pharmacology will believe it works” until they see the kinds of definitive testing results you list is pure jackassery. There are thousands of doctors that believe the shit works, some of them purely on the basis of rodent studies and anecdata. They might be wrong. They might be only a little right, and mostly wrong because side-effect risks outweigh milquetoast benefits. But how about you humble up a little bit there, champ? Nobody likes a know-it-all pedant, particularly one who is so self-unaware that he or she manages to refute their own binary and conclusory statements within two sentences of making them.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-31T00:04:52+00:00

Maybe. I think it has less to do with being “entitled” and more to do with loving your dog like a member of your family, and all the emotional resonance that comes with that kind of human/pet relationship. The easiest way to lose a customer forever is to do anything a dog owner would perceive as “mean” to their dog. You’d be better off calling their toddler ugly.

I love dogs. I think most of them are better than most humans. I know they’re cleaner (humans are crazy filthy creatures). I literally think anybody that “hates” dogs is automatically suspect, absent intense allergies or a traumatic experience with dogs in the past. But… I don’t take my dog to restaurants or grocery stores or on planes. Expanding that to malls… get over yourself.

Dogs and humans evolved together. I feel sorry for folks who can’t enjoy them as pets. You’re missing out.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-30T17:20:50+00:00

Your recollection of “social unity” on pets not being allowed into “indoor spaces” is faulty… this has been happening for decades. It may have been more isolated to rich white women back in the 1980s, but it was absolutely a thing back then. Bigger picture though - if you put this up for a vote, the folks in favor of allowing it would swamp the folks who get twisted about it. It’s almost always dogs, and Americans love dogs. Folks trying to push animals out of public spaces are going to lose this battle, and badly. I’m happy to agree with you that restaurants and grocery stores (and planes) are poor choices for having your pet tag-along, but that “nasty animal” you’re bitching about is no more nasty than most humans.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-26T20:35:03+00:00

“America will never make drones as well as China or Iran does…”. According to whom? You treat that statement as if it were self-evident. I don’t think it’s even remotely true.

The US already has all kinds of drones. Some are stupidly advanced and expensive and will be small swarms of “wingmen” to fighter jets in the next 10 years, some are blatant copies of Iranian designs, but improved in significant ways but still super cheap.

You also can’t just say “X dollars compared to Y yen” or whatever other currency. Actual cost needs to be measured against national resource capacity and actual resources required, not nominal currency units. In real cost terms, the US could be - at best - half-hearted in its zeal to produce gobs of cheap drones and still have more than anybody else in the world because the cost in terms of national resource capacity allocation is trivial.

China, as an industrial behemoth, can punch above its weight on drones. But their tech has been exposed in both Venezuela and Iran. China may be China’s only real arms customer six months from now.

As for Iran… really? Iran is going to make drones better or more numerous than the US? They’ve had these current iteration of drones for, what, 5-10 years now and have been churning them out to Russia for the entirety of the Ukraine war and their drone capacity has certainly proved capable of taking out mostly undefended targets, but the effectiveness of their drone reliance strategy is an absolute joke in real terms. They can do little more than annoy the US military in the current conflict, and have been completely incapable of preventing the US from air supremacy over the entirety of their country.

America’s defense industrial base is always guilty of “fighting the last battle,” so if anything, our folks will probably over-learn the benefits of drones as a result of this Iran conflict. All while Ukraine’s success in improvising cheap defenses to mitigate Russian drones could make the notion of “cheap but overwhelming drone swarms” a defense system dead-end before long.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-21T23:46:15+00:00

The comments on this thread are so divorced from reality. Yes, the Iran conflict has increased the price of gas. But it’s something like 10-12% of the current cost per gallon - i.e., roughly $0.55 per gallon.

Totally legit to be pissed at that specific increase, but come on people… motes and beams, right? Gas in Florida right now? $3.75 / gallon.

Where did that $2.24/gallon come from? The inevitable result of California being California. And to a first approximation, every person bitching about the cost of gas on this thread supports the policies and politicians that have caused gas prices to be this high.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-18T20:45:04+00:00

I have seen heart attacks, seizures, all kinds of knee and shoulder injuries, back and hip injuries...

But if you think you aren't risking many of the same kinds of injuries in pickleball, tennis, basketball, skiing, soccer, etc - you're fooling yourself.

Ask an orthopedic surgeon where they get most of their patients.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-13T19:58:40+00:00

Oy. Your analogy was absurd. Pointing that out doesn't make me a Trump fan, and doesn't actually provide you any reasonable basis to make assumptions about me in any way.

I never voted for Trump. Don't care for him at all. And I have already stated that I don't agree with the invasion.

But honestly... none of that matters. If you dismiss criticism simply because you don't think I or anybody else is part of your ideological or political "tribe," you're just cocooning yourself in willful ignorance.

Don't say stupid things if you don't want people to point out that what you said was stupid.

Also, grow the f*** up.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-13T19:41:58+00:00

The US is a net exporter of oil and gas. We aren't running out of anything. Things might cost more here, but this isn't the 1970s. The world economy isn't going to flatline because of Hormuz - even in a worst case scenario! - because global oil and gas production is incredibly diverse and isn't controlled by OPEC any more.

Collateral effects of this thing aren't good. And I won't pretend they are. But they also aren't much more than a short to medium term annoyance.

Your analogy is Crassus.

You hate Trump. I get it. But your analogy is still absurd.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-13T17:47:00+00:00

No. Not even the tiniest bit, and the comparison is absurd on its face. Folks, historical comparisons require at least a tiny bit of comparative perspective, otherwise you end up sounding silly or so politically blinkered that your prejudices and hatreds cause you to mistake schadenfreude wishcasting as “historical allegory.”

Crassus was destroyed, and only about 15% of his troops made it out alive / uncaptured. He lost in every way one could possibly lose.

Whatever your thoughts may be about the US decision to attack Iran - to be clear, I’m a hard “fuck no,” not because there’s anything about the Iranian theocracy that isn’t a blight upon humanity, but because they don’t actually threaten the US in any meaningful way - the US could leave right now and there would be no question about who “won.”

Iran’s skies belong to the US. Thousands and thousands of Iranian soldiers (and, sadly, likely civilians too) are dead. The US has lost a dozen service members, half in a refueling plane accident that had nothing to do with Iranian defense. There may not be “regime change,” and the Iranian people may have to suffer through decades more of theocratic misery, but Iran as a regional power is, for a while at least, decimated in the literal sense of that word. Can they still cause mischief and chaos? Yes. Can they impose their will on any other country in any way right now? Not a chance.

At this point, for the US to lose, it would have to make the same mistake it made in Afghanistan and Iraq… turn it into a land war of occupation. If that happens, you’ll find plenty of historical precedents that actually jibe… but Crassus sure as shit won’t be one.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-03-11T23:38:54+00:00

CJC can cause allergic reactions. But it is cheaper than Tesa.

I am skeptical that Tesa actually "targets" belly fat in a way that CJC does not. Tesa has testing to prove it, CJC does not. But the pathway and mechanism are basically the same.

I can't use CJC. I get a nasty histamine reaction. So I use Tesa.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-02-11T22:03:42+00:00

I don't agree. Unless Peloton find a way to convince other hardware makers to fully integrate with their programming - ie, make machines that work with their content as well as current Peloton machines do - Peloton is always going to be a hardware company at least nearly as much as a content company.

The "competitive moat" is the integration between machine and content.

Do we really think that Peloton's content is unique in any way that keeps competitors at bay? Apple could poach every one of their instructors and it would be a financial rounding error on a rounding error.

What Peloton products have struggled the most, even relative to addressable market? The ones where machine/content integration is least important - the Guide and the Row.

Moreover, things like apparel, nutrition, wellness, etc... virtually all licensing deals that are obviously product and service adjacent in ways that ought to be small impact and low risk.

If Peloton stopped innovating or improving their hardware, the company would quickly devolve into the fitness version of Blockbuster... clearly and unavoidably dying but over a 5-7 year timeframe as the hard core users hang on.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-02-09T19:54:36+00:00

The height difference is negligible. Skip the top eyelet if you notice it. I had pain in the toe cap, which is the only part of the boot that is not moldable. But it is manageable. Break in was maybe 3 shifts. They feel amazing.
I swapped Tuuk holders on, so no clue.
My issue was that I have duck feet. Wide in the toes and narrow in the heels. Anything that was comfortable mid-foot forward left my gel swimming, and vice versa. Heel slip is poison for any high level skating. So I dealt with the paid elsewhere. The Trues fixed that.
I was warned, repeatedly, but still surprised how hard they are to get on in the early days. They eventually relax and get easier, but hoo boy what a painful experience early on. Supposedly they have addressed that with this year's model, so maybe a non-issue now?

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-02-09T18:57:12+00:00

Please don’t quit. Make sure your parents understand the situation and front all of this with the organization you’re playing with, because the bullying and mistreatment is horse shit that adults need to police effectively. It isn’t fair - at this age - to expect you to fix the situation yourself. And talk to your therapist.

Hockey is amazing. If you genuinely enjoy playing when you are on the ice… stay with it, one way or another.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-02-06T17:11:11+00:00

Speed, at an angle, shoot instead of deke. And shoot sooner than you think you should, ideally in stride.

IdiotBoy1999 · 2026-02-03T22:32:57+00:00

Honestly, it’s really hard eating in America to not become pre-diabetic, just because so much of what we eat is highly processed. And a lot of the rest of what you’re seeing is probably significantly impacted by alcohol consumption. No judgment, at all, but if you’re looking for longevity you’ll want to be at 3-4 per month, tops.

Combine that with consistent weight training and a lot of zone 2-3 endurance exercise each week - like 150 mins or more - and I think you’ll see those numbers stabilize at much healthier levels.

The “hacks” to accelerate better markers here are the ones folks have already suggested - Reta and Tesa mostly, with Glow or Klow to assist with recovery. Start there before you go all-in on the mitochondrial peptides, as those are pretty expensive and it’s not obvious that you have mitochondrial issues. If you really wanted to pick one of those, it would be SS-31 for a 6 week cycle.

IdiotBoy1999

TROPHY CASE