Burning Down

In most incidents like that, the offending player is thrown out of the game and usually suspended. The NHL reviews all serious hits like the ones above before they make any arbitrary rulings. Lawsuits might also be filed. Depending on how bad the hit or fighting was, sometimes the International Ice Hockey Federation will even take the time to review it and dole out a punishment, like barring a player from the World Cup or something, like they did as a result of the Todd Bertuzzi - Steve Moore incident that happened 10 years ago:



Steve Moore was a young guy with a very short career that ended because his neck was broken in that brawl.

Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore Incident

Hockey has pretty much become a full contact sport, unlike how it used to be in the old days. The NHL permits so many things that are against the rules at the international and Olympic levels. Fighting, for instance. That's a huge problem now in the NHL - players dropping their sticks and gloves to duke it out on the ice as if it were a boxing match. It's becoming an issue in women's hockey as well, even though women's leagues are governed at the international level by the IIHF, which disallows fighting and has the right to disqualify teams from the World Cup and the Olympics if they break the rules (goes for both men's and women's hockey).

In terms of women's hockey, there have been repeated fighting incidents and even line brawls between the Canada and US national teams. They HATE each other and are not afraid to show it. Here's a recent one from the Olympic trials that happened in the fall, with 7 fucking seconds left in the game. It was the second fight in the game, Canada was down by 3 goals and I'm sure that fuelled it, but there are really no excuses for this behaviour:



My mom has been a huge hockey fan all her life and has always maintained her belief that hitting and fighting has gotten much worse since the NHL made helmets mandatory for new players in 1979. She thinks that players sometimes feel invincible with all that equipment on. The NHL is trying to stamp out the fighting and the dirty hits - hitting is allowed, but it should be a clean hit, like a hip check or something.

The game has definitely changed. It's become faster and more aggressive than it ever has been. You can see a clear difference in how the game is played out in this last clip from 1967, versus all the clips I shared above. There is fighting for sure, but it's quickly dissipated and handled neatly by the referees. The hitting was clean and you can clearly see that. Now when there's fighting and hitting, it's like a fucking free-for-all. The refs just let players fight it out.