What happened to George Parros last night was a fluke. I'm going to say that right now. Most injuries in fights occur from punches, not from falling face first on the ice.
However, what this has done is once again brought up the debate of fighting in hockey.
From the 11/12 season the NHL has averaged about 655 fights per season. I can't find stats for how many of those resulted in an injury, but not many. Let's use last night for example. There were six fights in the NHL last night, only one resulted in an injury. And I'd be willing to bet it's even less than that. In a survey from 2011 fights resulted in just 8% of concussions. While 58% were from what were at the time "legal" hits, most of which are probably illegal now. You can see the stats here.
http://www.hockeyrants.ca/nhl/nhl-releases-concussion-statistics/
The debate about fighting in hockey is always going, however the only time it really soars like this is when there's an injury to a player like last night. Which really is only once or twice a year, less severe injuries do happen from fighting but still in a lot less than half the fights, after almost every fight both guys are okay. Even when an incident like last night does occur, what does the league office do? Almost nothing.
Fights do have a purpose in the game and one of them is to stand up for teammates. When a goal scorer gets hurt from an illegal hit to the head, a tough guy from the team is pretty much expected to step in and fight, and most of the time they do. Anyone who hits a star player on a team knows that they risk having a tough guy come after them.
Fights also energize a team, in a study done by the hockey news, almost every time there's a fight in an NHL game, at least one, if not both of the teams start to play better. In one season when Shawn Thorton was in a fight for the Boston Bruins, the Bruins were 38-13-8, which is pretty astounding. You can read more on fights energizing a team here.
http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/43976-Moneyball-look-at-NHL-stats-shows-starting-a-fight-sure-way-to-change-momentum.html
Finally, players want it in the game. When the league asked them both in 11/12, both years 98% of the players said fighting should not be completely abolished. To me, that's the strongest argument for keeping it in the game. The players want it, the league wants it, and on a survey on "The Hockey News" website something like 86% of the fans wanted it, I think fighting is going to stay.
You can see the hockey fight stats here
http://www.hockeyfights.com/stats/
Players survey results here
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/once-again-nhl-players-voice-overwhelming-opposition-fighting-175557533.html
As always your thoughts are welcome in the comments section,
Darren.
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