NHL/NBA Brawls

[Eric]

I'm sure everybody has seen them by now. A lot of people think the coverage of the NBA brawl was driven by racism since the NHL rumble wasn't scrutinized as much.

They were both terrible acts of sportsmanship. They were equally as bad.

Racism, of course, played some parts in it. It depends on who you talk to. But I think most of the reason was that nobody cares about the NHL. What sells more papers, dog bites man or man bites dog? It's the same reasoning with the Miami/FIU brawl and the Dartmouth/(was it Cornell or Holy Cross) brawl. It's whatever garners more attention.

That's my take on it.

[Spence]

Part of Hockey has always been fighting. It is part of the sport. Basketball is different, it isn't as physical and fighting has never been part of the sport. Racism has nothing to do with it.

[Eric]

Really? I would think that has something to do with it. Racism is dying by the generation, I know, but my guess would be that it were some people's motivation for not covering it.

I know fighting is a part of hockey, but not all-out brawls. I just feel that racism is not the main issue. Most coverage was not motivated by racism. That's what I'm trying to say. If people in India got in a fight while playing cricket and started swinging their sticks, would anybody in the US actually care? No. I know that using cricket is a bit of an extreme, but it is the same principle.

[Spence]

No one here would care because it is in India. Not because of color.

Any popular sport would get national coverage with a brawl. Hockey is more regional, even though it is played thoughout the US. When NASCAR drivers get into fights it makes the headlines and almost all those guys are white.

[Eric]

That is my point. It did play a small part, but it was minscule in the whole thing.

The amount of coverage a brawl recieves depends on the attention to the sport around the U.S. When there was the huge Pacer/Piston brawl, there were a lot of brawls revisited like the one where Ty Domi pulled a fan over the penalty box or something and stuff like that.

My point about the cricket thing was that nobody cares about cricket. Not many people here care about the NHL anymore but the NBA is a pretty popular sport. That's why the Knicks/Nuggets brawl got more coverage.

[Spence]

OK then I agree.

I think many news guys try and put the racism tag on everything. Racism exists and I won't deny that, but it isn't behind every news story involving people of different races. Most people have too many problems of their own to put the effort into being an active racist. Real people don't even think about it, just the people(mostly media) who are trying to stir the pot.