1) Jibble surprised you didn’t have you’re favourite, Dion Phaneuf on your list!
2) It was different, but shouldn’t be disallowed. We need fewer rules on fighting, not more!

Don’t worry, though, I’m pretty sure the players will police the game by challenging Staubitz to a fight.

I don’t really see how this is all that different from Sheldon Souray facing a match penalty and the threat of suspension for wearing a wrist brace in a fight. http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/edmonton-oilers/Souray+date+with+Campbell/1209026/story.html

If Staubitz was intentionally using his elbows to land hits, then this would constitute intent to injure (not that using fists isn’t…).

I was disappointed (but frankly, not surprised) by Colin Campbells’ shrug of the shoulders on it. If his stance is really that there’s no rule that says you can’t use an elbow in a fight, then why not just pick a stick up and smash a guy over the head?

Whether he did it intentionally or not, we’re now at a point in hockey where more and more guys are taking boxing and MMA lessons, with the specific aim of becoming better fighters.

Its just a matter of time until the league has to ban something like this – because it will be seen as somehow less “pure” than “regular” fighting with ones fists. And it will highlight the pure idiocy of trying to justify, as “part of the game”, people hitting each other in the face. And then we’ll be one step closer to finally getting rid of fighting entirely

I honestly couldn’t tell (from that video, anyway). After a few viewings, Staubitz’s forearm/elbows didn’t look any different to me than Tootoo’s punch follow-throughs earlier in the fight, although obviously there was a different result.

I’m no anti-fighting crusader, but it always feels like an out-of-body experience every time we hockey fans discuss what the “rules” should be to keep things fair for this “illegal” interaction that is “part of the game” and allows players to “police themselves” within the … um, rules.

MMA tactics seem inevitable; it will be high comedy to watch the league try to sift those tactics out. Like Romans debating the rules of Lions v. Christians, mixed with “Who’s on First?” (“No, see, it’s okay to bludgeon a guy’s ear with your fist, but you can’t elbow drop his ear – that wouldn’t be fair. And you can concuss him with a fist to the jaw or the temple, but he needs to keep his helmet on in case he falls and gets a concussion. But he can’t fight with a visor; that’s just unfair. Anytime you score a knockout and quite possibly make his life after 50 miserable and confusing, you should immediately check to see if he’s okay. It’s the honorable thing.”)

Fighting in hockey is like bull fighting: Romanticized, ritualized, part of the culture — yet totally absurd from the outside looking in.

compared to the comments from the (surprise surprise) Nashville beat writer, the video is pretty inconclusive. I think he missed his punches and maybe while missing thought to stick the elbow out.

I’ve watched the fight dozens of times this past week, and I honestly cannot see how Staubitz intentionally landed elbows/forearms/whatever people are accusing him of. His punches are wild at first, with him just trying to land them, and then he “finds his range,” as Drew Remenda states, and just repeatedly hammers Tootoo in the face with his fist. He follows through with his punches, which would explain the alleged elbows since he was missing the mark in the first part of the fight.

Oh, and I doubt that it was just the elbow that bloodied Tootoo, as the journalist suggests – did he see those dozen or so hooks right to Tootoo’s face? And then those uppercuts when Staubitz switched hands? There may have been an elbow at the beginning, but there was also a lot more “legal” punches that landed that would certainly cause injury. Hard ones, too, judging by the fact that Staubitz was icing his hands after the fight.

Granted, I am a Sharks fan that absolutely loved seeing Staubitz do something outside of taking an ill-timed penalty, so I’m a bit biased. But I honestly did not see any intentional elbowing in there.