1 CHAPTER FOUR Does Violence in Professional Ice Hockey Pay? Cross Country Evidence from Three Leagues Dennis Coates, Marcel Battre, and Christian Deutscher Abstract Hockey is inherently a rough, physical game. We analyze the impact of physical violence on the success of professional hockey clubs from highest league in North America, Finland, and Germany. Using penalty minutes as an indicator of violence, the evidence is that incurring penalties will not improve the team’s points and may even reduce them. Actual fights between players are linked to reductions in team points in the National Hockey League (North America). Nor is attendance clearly greater at the home games of highly penalized clubs, though weak evidence of such a relationship is found for the German Ice Hockey League. Team revenues are available only for the North American league, and there is also weak evidence that more penalized teams earn greater revenues.