What’s The Value Of An Ass-Kicking Freely Offered?

Hockey fights always feel a little absurd when their performativeness is laid bare. We know how it works, and why it's done, but crave permission to suspend disbelief. Just give us the smallest fig leaf of interpersonal dislike, and we'll buy it. But a move toward a safer and more peaceful version of the sport has, to the larger benefit, made those moments fewer and further between. We recently celebrated the anniversary of one of the big Red Wings–Avs brawls, and the genuine venom and intent to injure in those clips is jarring when compared with most modern-day fights, the most famous recent example of which was arranged on a group text. But rituals can matter for their own sake, and for the social cohesion they provide. The original philosophical principle of performativity referred not to insincerity trumping intent—virtue signaling, in other words—but to the use of words or acts that actually bring something into being. How being pronounced man and wife makes them married, for example. Or how fighting an opponent who injured your teammate might tangibly strengthen the bond of your team. Not because you hate that other guy or because you want him to feel physical pain as punishment, but because that's what teammates are supposed to do. Does the heavy "supposed to" of Monday's delayed Maple Leafs vs. Radko Gudas throwdown render it less genuine? I don't know! It's all very fraught and on some level not really measurable from the outside, because if the bond is the thing rather than revenge, it's not something I can see or measure. But the epistemology of a hockey fight becomes even more confusing when one party doesn't bother fighting back, and just stands there and eats the punches due.