All major sports are in desperate need of a purge rule. In professional athletics, the egos are just as large as the paychecks. As fans, we’re accustomed to showboating in football, basketball, and baseball.

Why is it that we hardly ever see it in hockey?

The goal in sports is to dominate your opponent; when you’re on top, you feel invincible. When you’re not, you become overly frustrated. Seeing your opponent rub it in not only irks you, it taps in to your primitive instincts.

A slam dunk is a metaphor, so are home runs and touchdowns. For their particular sport, they represent big punches or knockdowns. When you see LeBron James posterize an opponent and excessively celebrate, he’s essentially saying he owns him.

Would wide receivers be so quick to do a jig after catching a TD pass, if they knew that a cornerback was legally allowed to fight them for 10-15 seconds? Let that simmer in your head for a bit.

In the clip below, we see a classic example of why hockey has been on to something for decades.

Eric Cairns & Scott Daniels came to blows following a shoulder check. Daniels came out swinging for the fences, but Cairns maximized his longer reach by utilizing solid head movement.

Daniels threw two looping overhand rights and a wide left hook that missed entirely/didn’t connect cleanly. Considering he was on skates, Cairns rolled with the punches quite well.
Eric launched a clubbing right hand that got Daniels to duck; as Scott attempted to return with a right shovel hook, he was countered with a well-placed shot to the temple. As Daniels hit the ice, Cairns immediately entered side mount. He landed a decent punch before the two referees separated the action.