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At the end of the day, you're not going to convince me that fighting polices cheap shots, at least not at the highest level of play. The sort of people that such a threat would be effective on aren't the sort of person who plans such hits to begin with. That usually happens spur of the moment, and they are rarely actively targeting places that would do long term damage (example, going for a hard check in retaliation, missing the chest and accidentally hitting the neck or head).
And the people who WOULD be directly targeted by such enforcers don't care one tenth of one shit about enforcers. It's the expected cost of doing their job. If they weren't willing to take that potential beating for the paycheck, they wouldn't be on the roster to begin with.
That's NOT the same as saying fighting is pointless or should be abolished, and to be fair, I've probably expressed that poorly. What I have said is that if the ONLY reason for fighting in the NHL is to deter cheap shot artists, that it fails miserably at that goal.
And the people who WOULD be directly targeted by such enforcers don't care one tenth of one shit about enforcers. It's the expected cost of doing their job. If they weren't willing to take that potential beating for the paycheck, they wouldn't be on the roster to begin with.
That's NOT the same as saying fighting is pointless or should be abolished, and to be fair, I've probably expressed that poorly. What I have said is that if the ONLY reason for fighting in the NHL is to deter cheap shot artists, that it fails miserably at that goal.
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