Hockey that used to be

What you are seeing now is a technology game. Plastic skates & fiberglass stick shafts. Its a completely different game. Years ago you had steel blades & leather boots. Gloves were leather. The sticks were entirely wood. You had to be twice as strong to play. The skates were way heavier. You had to be able to play without stopping. With steel blades if you stopped, you lost alot of stamina starting back up. Players didn't need helmets because the puck was kept down by the sticks. Sticks were not even curved. The player of today does not have to carry the weight players years ago did.
The NHL of the past had strict offsides. NHL changed its rules to accomodate the players. There is no 2 line pass & line offsides are rarely blown. I've seen players offside by a yard or more uncalled. The rules were changed to improve the flow. Teams were deliberately pushing people offside to disrupt the game. The concussion problem is the NHL's inability to make the rinks bigger. There is so little room players are getting concussions from collisions with teammates. What you are seeing is tech hockey.

I don't think bigger rinks would make that much of a difference if you look at europe they still have the same sort of issues in terms of concussions even in canada where there are international rinks at the lower levels there are still serious issues.

Dion Pheunf has just as many crushing hits in big ice surfaces than in the small one

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvY2zsK4sCE"]Canada - Switzerland Dion Phaneuf hit on Simon Moser - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpvfOPxs890"]Phaneuf levels Olesz - YouTube[/ame]

I am not going to say NHL should have bigger ice because I like bigger ice. They need to have bigger ice because the players have outgrown the small rinks. Alot of them are 6'2" or bigger so right there you see the size of the players has increased. It would give skill players a huge advantage because at it stands now a weak skater can position himself to get in the way & the skill player has no room to maneuver. & a weak skater can take advantage of the lack of room to punish skill players severely.
Let me say right out I understand why NHL changed the offside rules but I don't approve of it. The rules were fine, its the fact that NHL players got bigger there is no room to get open to enter the zone. For example, the touch up rule: ..... use to be if you had the puck & your teammate went offside you had to pass the puck back or else get a whistle. Now all you need do is dump it & touch up & its a huge advantage. In international matches they don't accept the touch up rule as a proper offside. You bring it in & you get whistled. As it should be. NHL is not THE game of hockey. It requires discipline to keep onside. Players need to be coached on how to do that at an early age. As it stands now the offsides rules favor the weak players because they can just dump it. Maybe international rules were changed. I don't follow it that closely.

The players need to learn how to stay onside instead of changing the rules. That's why you have coaches. The stoppages are because players are not playing the game well. I saw just today DET @ EDM a Det player was pushed offside & the ref called it offsides. Its supposed to be a penalty for interference.

Fox Terrier
I don't think it would give players a huge advantage aslo some players with alot of skill play great on small ice but not play as well on big ice due to there is so much space.

I have an unusual game: Carolina @ Leningrad. It was pre season so it don't mean much. The europeans on Carolina stood out & the rest of the NHLers were out of position alot. If you saw the game, you'd see Carolina using ultra violence... the ref had to stop the game & talk to the coach on Carolina to stop headhunting. It was only a friendly but the NHLers seemed to think it was a cup final. Like I said Carolina were running around looking to nail people leaving their positions to do so & several goals were the result. After that the KHL did not want to play NHL again. It was a disgrace. NHL teams are poorly coached. They don't have time. NHL needs to cut 10% of games & reduce salaries 10%. Alot of NHL players are running around out of control headhunting. That is why there is a concussion epidemic. Coaches cannot control the players.

Think your asking a lot from a ref to try and pick out who will get the penalty on that type of play.

They recycle the same old faces in a continuous rotation. Same thing with the "expert" talking heads.

I'm not a big fan of the shoot-out to be honest, but also don't want a 0-0 regulation tie.

How about some sort of way to incorporate 3 on 3 into OT?

The headhunter philosophy is the domain of canadian junior hockey. it is taught there & now the NHL is losing 100s of millions of $$ worth of talent. you cannot get the genie back in the bottle. once these stars get concussions, its all she wrote. even the slightest bump will cause a reoccurance. by showing the clips continuously. they are making it look cool. canadian hockey has always been about taking a man out. its a natural progression from that to a "hit man" foolosophy canadian coaches are guilty of. Like Pat Burns - a headhunter coach.

My opinion cannot be wrong to me.

NHL used to be 6 teams. I don't know how old you are but you'd have to be at least 60 to have been around. NHL expanded in 1967. I had been a fan 1962-67. When NHL expanded I stopped being a fan. I was a casual observer. During the 6 teams, if a rookie tried to break in, it was a big deal. Very few rookies made the grade. It was a closed club so when a new player was introduced, they worked him over & if he could take it, he was in. One year a swede Ulf Sterner tried to play. I think he was on New York. He took such a bad beating he had to quit. You'd have to look up how many games he had. Less than 20. So you see the ultra violence has been around a long time. The difference now is NHL has expanded too much & cannot afford to lose players due to violence. It costs alot of money to make a top player too much to lose one for bad reasons.

junior hockey. pat burns. remember anything?

There is a violent headhunter incident in almost every game. This is after the NHL called it unacceptable. Following closely upon the Penguins incident in which a player left his feet to elbow a guys head, Ottawa player Foligno elbowed a Florida guys head! & he threw a tantrum after being given the boot. He should get 5 games for the elbow & another 5 for the tantrum. Maclean - Ottawa coach needs to get 5 games for allowing it. He was responsible for his players conduct on the ice. I'm convinced the only thing going to stop the headhunting is if police arrest players for assault. NHL rules are not stopping the violence.

There is no way he should get 10 games for that play yes it was a bad the florida player got hurt but it was not what i would call true dirty hit as for why he was so upset is due to there was no call right away and then as folingo got to the bench he got called.Should Folingo for something yes no question 2 minutes maybe a double minor but jovo should have got 2 minutes as well i do agree the there are issues but handing out 10 games for this hit no that would be to much again maybe he should have got something maybe even a game but no 10 games that would be way over the line.