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After Canada beat the USA in the 4 Nations final to cap off what was an exciting event, one person who commented about the tournament and hockey was NBA legend Kevin Garnett. As the 4 Nations final gears up for Olympics hockey, one of the aspects Garnett would speak about is the fighting and physicality of the sport when compared to basketball.
Kevin Garnett speaks on fighting in the NHL compared to the NBA
The conversation started when Garnet was asked on his show “KG Certified” about hockey analyst P.K. Subban's comments regarding basketball players not caring during such events as the All-Star game. He would mention fighting as showing the passionate side of hockey, but Garnett fires back and says that's not the best lesson to show to an audience.
“To beat up another sport to glorify your own, I wasn’t feeling that,” Garnett said. “Yeah, we got different rules for a reason. We are a passionate sport, we are an emotional sport. Hockey to me, when I watch those guys they’re passionate too, but you talk about teaching kids, imagine going into a setting where you want to fight. I don’t know if they’ve been watching but ain’t nobody fighting today. These kids got switches out here dog, ain’t nobody out here squaring up fighting. You better have some composure about yourself bro.”
“Man get bowed in the face in the Western Conference game by one of your good friends and then have some composure,” Garnett continued. “What you need to teach the kids at home is that there’s a boy out here bigger than you, hits harder than you, and all that. That’s reality and these kids out here that don’t want to fight pulling switches, man he’s got a bigger switch than all of you. So the thing is to teach being a bigger person. Talking, communicating, and resolving.”
Kevin Garnett speaks further about hockey
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The 4 Nations tournament was a historic showcase of hockey's best talent from the nations of the USA, Canada, Finland, and Sweden which led to excitement in showing how exhibition games can consist of players trying hard. This is what led to the debate between the NHL and NBA as the former replaced the All-Star game with this format as Garnett would shout out them for changing it up.
“Respects to hockey and them trying to get their viewership right but until they tap into some culture I don’t know what that’s going to be,” Garnett said. “At least for Americans, at least for the group of people that I’m around and how we talk about sports.”
It remains to be seen if the NHL will keep the 4 Nations format as it remains to be seen if it will be a big hit in terms of viewership and social media engagement.
“I know hockey has this big a– tournament going on and it seems like fighting is the precedent,” Garnett said. “US and Canada haven’t fought, I think the most times that they fought was like 4 times in the last some years, and then all of a sudden there’s like 10 fights that broke out.”
Debates from fans about comparing their favorite sport to another will no doubt keep happening, especially in regards to each of their respective All-Star game formats.
