players don't respect each other like they used to

I love the aftermath where the guy who did the initial slash dropped his gloves and one of the Pens came in with his stick up like he was Dr Hook from Slap Shot.

I have a hard time believing that Colin has anything to do with this at all unless he was the one who developed the rules changes after the lockout. You don't think the fact that goons can't clutch & grab anymore, there's no 2-line pass, etc. didn't have more of an effect on the cleaning up of the game because a.) that's not allowed in the rules anymore and b.) big, slow guys like Derian Hatcher are devalued because they are detriments to their teams now? Seems to me like since those guys used to be allowed to get away with anything, the cleanliness of the sport also suffered. Because of the new rules, they're not now and the game has seen a turn for the better.

My point with CC was that his discipline policy is a joke. If you removed fighting and fines/suspensions continued to be laughable, Geddy's point re: Cooke and Downie running wild would probably have some merit.

Mario looks for trouble, finds it. Standard.

Still just bummed about this whole deal. Whenever something like this happens, just makes you feel like someone could have talked to the guy and that this could have been avoided. Sitting here in my Wild sweater brooding.

On a happier note, I started a convo with someone at work today about this. As we were talking about how sad it was, he pulled all of this random old north stars stuff out of his desk. Apparently he is a huge hockey fan - he actually named the entire 80-81 stanley cup team. Who knew?

If the league is hell bent on getting rid of head shots, then get rid of the ultimate head shots, which is obv fighting.

I mean, Don Cherry can keep telling me for another 20 years that it's just "two good guys going at it" and "no one's getting hurt", but I stopped believing his old ass long ago. Unfortunately, too many people agree with that dinosaur's view of things.

i love to make fun of CC as much as the next guy, but we all realize that he gets his mandate from the top. it's not like he's out there winging it with "the Wheel" (more or less), he gets the gameplan from the GM's, the board of governors, Bettman, Shanny's competition committee, etc. and until recently, they mostly didn't want to see long suspensions for hits/infractions. they all sort of agreed that injuries are bad enough, and that they'd rather not be paying guys to sit out on the sidelines, with their paycheque goes into the Human Fund, or whatever. i guess late this year they changed their minds after the Crosby thing or something, and now want him to suspend head hits. alright.

anyone have the stats on concussions, as in where they come from? i remember seeing something a while back, and thought a minority of them came from dirty hits. didn't like half of them come from fights or something, with the rest being from cleanish hockey plays?

plus i'm not sure if harsher suspensions will make much of a difference anyway. a lot of this stuff just happens, without much, if any, premeditation.

isn't an easy way to get rid of the "goons" just to shrink your allowed gameday roster?

If you limited teams to only being able to dress 16 skaters instead of 18 skaters you pretty much can't have designated goons on your 4th line.

The 10th forward (or #6 D) would absolutely have to be a competent player. The 10th forward would probably evolve into a player who can also play some D as well in case of injury or ejection.

i can't see the rosters shrinking (the PA would lose their ****, and the teams probably wouldn't want it either), unless the game becomes 4-on-4 or something. but i can't see that happening either, not for a while anyway.

55,000 people packed the Rogers Centre for GSP-Shields. Is that significantly less dangerous than a hockey fight?

The point I'm getting at is that it really is a double edged sword imo. I've been going to games my whole life and nothing gets people out of their seats quite like a great fight. There is massive entertainment value in a great fight and it's ultimately an entertainment industry.

I'm sure this post will get refuted, and probably quite justifiably, on the basis of being inconsistent, but I just feel like the removal or severe curbing of this aspect could affect how you attract target American demographics, who still tune in because they love how "tough" those crazy Canadian bastards on skates are. And the 2p2 hockey regs aren't the average bear when it comes to NHL fans, we're looking for different things and that should be noted.

Maybe my calling out CC is a bit unfair because I'm sure the decisions don't come down to only him, but when you've got



drawing one game, come the **** on.

And that was after the apparent crackdown on headshots too.

playoffs tho.



but yeah, Triumph is probably right once again, and the game is cleaner than it's ever been. **** is always gonna happen in hockey, not gonna be able to stop it all. it's too fast, and some of these guys are too dumb.

Two games is still an absolute joke for that.

of course it's a joke but it was a different time. the league did not see the need to make an example of a guy.

my point wasn't that campbell has caused there to be less violence in the game, but that that has somewhat naturally come about. some of the things that have probably helped are rules against bench clearing brawls, third man in, instigator, etc., as well as a general crackdown on all the rules.

Which is kind of a joke in and of itself because Kunitz has a history of taking runs at people like that, but that's a derail for another day.

Yeah, I definitely agree w/r/t the rules. CC's fines/suspensions have played a part as well, but I just think that if you're going to phase out fighting as a result of all this stuff coming out about hits to the head, he's going to have to stop it with this inconsistent crap and jokes of suspension lengths.

I think contact started when I was playing in Pee-wee and at that time like Geddy said it was mice against mice. I have the belief it should be brought into the game in Atom or earlier to keep young players aware of the dangers.

I remember playing summer hockey two summers later and we always had tournaments down in Toronto hosted by Jr Marleys I believe it was my first shift and this MONSTER of a 13 y/o or w/e we were @ that time just absolutely cleaned my clock. I must have been 5,4 or something at that time maybe even less, but this guy (we later named Ogre) had hit puberty out of the park and was crushing everyone in sight.

Having it brought into the game at an earlier age will reduce the gap between players in these situations. There is somewhat of an awareness of the dangerousness of concussions in early hockey, but there can def. be more focus on it imo.

RIP Boogeyman. I am from Ottawa and I really wanted to see you clean Big Country that game. Toughest guy on the ice in the last however many years for sure. GG big guy.

That Kunitz elbow was fully deserving of a bunch of games, but it's not as if there wasn't precedent for the length of his suspension. Remember Pronger's elbow on McAmmond in the 07 Cup Finals? He only recieved one game for that, and keep in mind that Pronger had already been suspended earlier in the playoffs before that incident.

The league has no consistency in suspensions also I agree with many that players that do get hit are sometimes just stupid turning just before they get hit to draw a penalty.

Problem is the equipment. Its all state of the art polymer plastic instead of the old leather. Go back to no helmuts and leather elbow and shoulder pads.

I also think Colin is a joke. How can you still hold the job when your son is playing. The day his son made the league he should have resigned and the league brought in a tribunal

But surely adhering to old precedents that are incorrect or outdated is arguably just as bad, right?

Just because it was an established decision in 2007 doesn't mean it was or should be applicable again in 2011.

The author who was working on Boogaard's biography gave told this story in an interview:

that's ****ing terrible. dude definitely was going crazy

I agree with that to a degree, but there are a lot of incidents in the playoffs that would normally be suspensions that aren't or players get off far easier than they would have in the regular season. The Pronger suspension was just the closest thing to a comparable I could think of. Clearly the NHL does not like to 'send messages' during the playoffs.

I just realized my last post about abolishing old precedents could easily be turned on its head to say fighting has no place in the sport, regardless of its entertainment factor. Heh.

Right, and it's stuff like that that's got to stop if they're going to phase out fighting.