That one appeared to be extreme.
I, too, played for many years. Hockey's attraction is sustained high-speed action. But people who haven't played or studied the game don't realize that we'll never be able to end the fighting. The rules leave so much to referee interpretation that there will sometimes be chippiness that an enforcer will have to stop.
I most often played amateur rules (high school and college) and international rules so I had only a few fights and I was never very good at it. In Junior A (NHL rules) and college, I had someone to keep me from being pummeled. I would say, "That guy has been hitting me late all night" and the designated defensemen would tell him, "If you keep that up you're going to have to deal with me." Sometimes it worked without escalating and sometimes my teammate had to "deal with it."
All Wayne Gretzky had to do was nod at someone and Dave Semenko would be on him like a terrier.