Former player for several KHL and NHL clubs Yevgeny Artiukhin believes that fights on the ice in the KHL will not leave hockey.
— So far there have been few events related to battles, I haven’t seen any memorable fights. A generation of guys who often threw their gloves away is over. In principle, there are few tall and healthy players left in our hockey. Everyone is trying to play it safe. Maybe now is the start of the championship, and there is no such intensity. Ak Bars played with Kunlun, there were fights, but I didn’t see any kind of “disorder” there.
— Are you upset that there aren’t enough fist fights on the ice?
– No, I am generally calm about this. And when I played, I myself was never the instigator of fights. I always said: it’s not part of my game. But the fans like it. All this must be done in moderation, at the right time, at the right time. Stand up for your partner or whatever. Combat is an element of the game. You can’t just start fighting. And there are fines and so on. Even though now the rules have changed, they no longer give you expulsions for throwing gloves, you still have to do everything wisely.
— This, when at the first throw-in the players took off their gloves and started beating their opponents, like the Vityaz guys did, will this not happen again?
– Well, yes, it’s something from a long time ago. Andrei Nazarov loved to put on such a show. But the fighting won’t disappear completely. How can we live without them? Hockey differs from other team sports in that it involves fighting and power struggles. A difficult sport. Clashes, skirmishes – you can’t do without them. But now everyone is “throwing in” to the season and not getting carried away with these things,” Artyukhin said, as quoted by RB Sport.
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RB Sports
Source : MatchTV
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
