March 30, 2026.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in Anaheim to take on the Ducks. The puck drops and so do the gloves of Toronto’s Max Domi and Anaheim’s Radko Gudas. From the very beginning of the game the fight is on although this isn’t actually the beginning of something.
It’s the end of it.
In an earlier meeting between the two teams in Toronto on March 12, Gudas threw a careless – some call it vicious – knee into Toronto’s Auston Matthews, instantly ending the Toronto center’s season. For some reason nobody on Toronto roster’s held Gudas accountable that night but tonight it’s a different story.
Tonight Gudas faces ice-level justice because the Hockey Gods demand it.
The Code demands it.
To an outsider, this is just more hockey mayhem. A premeditated attack on Gudas in the violent and often renegade world of the NHL. Except it wasn’t. It was procedure and the systematic restoration of balance. Everyone knew this, including Gudas. Despite not being 100 per cent healthy, Gudas dressed for the game knowing full well what was coming.
Hockey doesn’t just have rules – it has layers of rules.
Whether it’s headshots, running the goalie or vulnerable hits, hockey has an invisible line you just don’t cross. It’s the answer to the player who knows better but who does it anyway. The official rulebook handles infractions and The Code handles violations of intent.
Fighting has been a fundamental part of the game since the game began and the NHL remains the only league that not only allows it but it’s also the only league where fights don’t lead to automatic ejections.
Officially the NHL doesn’t condone fighting. Unofficially it does. It’s never been ‘legal’ but it’s been an accepted part of the game for more than a century. In 1922 the NHL introduced Rule 56, which officially gave a five-minute major penalty for fighting, opting to regulate it rather than ban it.
Over time, other rules were added to deter excessive fighting, such as the “third man in” rule (1977) and the “instigator penalty” (1992), which added a two-minute minor and game misconduct for players who needlessly start fights.
It’s not the rules that make fighting “work” though. It’s the tacit understanding of the tricky stuff in the margins. While your indiscretion may escape the gaze of the officials, rest assured you’ll still be held accountable by your opponent when it’s warranted.
The Code in hockey “works’ because it’s expected, it’s contained (usually just two players for a short duration) and it has a clear end point. When it’s over, it’s over. Balance has been restored.
Baseball has a culture similar to hockey with its own retaliation protocol. If a pitcher hits a star player for example, the opposing team often feels obligated to hit one of their stars in return. These actions, if done subtly, are rarely formally punished by leagues, but rather seen as a way to maintain the integrity and “respect” of the game.
Baseball does differ from hockey in one major way because its justice is carried out at a distance and is often as much about the theatrics as it is about authentic retaliation.
The self-policing mentality is much less evident in other sports.
In basketball, running up the score late is a major faux pas as is showboating but not much happens because of it, short of a stare down or a technical foul.
American football has late hits, cheap shots and the targeting of quarterbacks but the retribution often comes with a bigger penalty than the original act.
And in soccer dangerous tackling and bad acting are lines that can’t be crossed but nothing punitive happens beyond a finger wag or some awkward performative drama.
None of these sports lack the integrity to protect their own game but they do lack the mechanism to get it done. The line still exists yet the enforcement doesn’t.
So why the disparity?
Hockey’s culture, mainly. Which has always been steeped in a rigid code of conduct although even that has required some major alterations over the years. Specifically in the 1970s when hockey had become a vicious outlaw culture where fighting wasn’t just a part of the game. It was the game
Blame the Philadelphia Flyers for that. They built a mini dynasty in the early seventies based in large part using intense physical intimidation. Mostly that meant fighting.
The “Broad Street Bullies” were led by Dave “The Hammer” Schultz – who set the NHL record with 472 penalty minutes in the 1974-75 season – and the team used fighting and brutish physical play to make opponents uncomfortable and force turnovers.
In retrospect, this strategy was devastatingly brilliant. The Flyers had decided to make hockey’s sideline their calling card. They didn’t just want toughness. They wanted meanness. And they wanted the most dominant fighters in the game playing for them.
It’s like the Flyers had found a loophole and they fully aimed to exploit it. Intimidation was their chosen strategy, and it took the NHL some time to adjust to this new reality.
The “third man in” rule instituted in 1977, aimed to prevent players from ganging up on an intended target. The Flyers were so good at being bad during that era that rules had to be amended to restrict their style of play and ensure some semblance of sanity within the league.
Ironically because of this newfound pugilistic style of play, the NHL saw a surge in U.S. popularity during this era. This era was also the birthplace of the enduring – often troublesome – cliches about “the lawless NHL” stem from.
Since then, the NHL has actively sought to strike a balance between selling the inherent fighting within the sport and the immense skills of its players.
Through all of this – even the ugly days of Old Time Hockey – the Code has survived, not only is the game better for it but all sports are because the NHL model provides the blueprint for a player-driven, player-enforced, code of conduct although it’s unlikely to be replicated elsewhere.
It’s just not part of their DNA.
Whereas most modern sports rely entirely on centralized, institutional control, hockey still allows localized, player-enforced correction, and in very specific moments like with Radko Gudas’ ethical indiscretion, that second system is more efficient.
The players know it.
The game knows it.
And in the end, you have to ask: What’s more dangerous? A system that allows controlled conflict that polices its own or one that pretends it doesn’t even exist?