Rat PIM Highlights – Update February 18th 2013

We recently celebrated Hockey Day in Canada and Hockey Weekend Across America.  The primetime telecast in Canada on Saturday, February 9^th featured several 3^rd period brawls between Toronto and Montreal.  That game gave me the motivation to update my theory on the correlation of fights per game and Rat PIM.  I thought that I would review a small sample of games involving the top teams in fight majors this season and see how they are doing in their honourable campaign to make the game safer.

Hockey Players Fight Because They Can.

For the last 8 months I’ve attempted to disprove the popular myths about why fighting remains in hockey.  Using accepted academic studies, research from other hockey websites, NHL statistics and observations from professional journalists, I think I have presented a compelling alternative view of this issue.  But I’ve recently come to believe that the reason it remains in the game is very simple.