It's time to stop whining about every aspect of NHL hockey. The game is great just as it is.
All this talk of running the goalies is starting to grate on my nerves.
Why can't we just once say the game is in great shape and leave it alone! I swear all we do is eat our own.
Since I broke into the league in 1989 this has been an issue of debate among other sore points, including: knee on knee hits; high sticking; hits from behind; blows to the head; fighting, and staged fighting; the instigator rule; composite sticks; touch icing; diving; goalies handling the puck; goalies not handling the puck; goalies handling the puck again.
Did I miss anything? Feel free to fill in the blanks if I have. It's amazing the game looks anything like it did 50 years ago with so many calling for constant changes.
Here's the skinny people: the game has never been better.
The game is fast. The games are not long like MLB, yet are very exciting. Fans are being entertained as well as they've ever been. Well done, Colie Campbell, Mike Murphy and the staff no one knows. While the NHL's hockey operations department bends every once and a while from the scrutiny of moderating 1,300 games a year, it certainly hasn't shown signs of breaking.
The game flows now because the NHL's hockey department lets speed dictate while allowing the physicality to remain in vogue. And if goalies continue to be very aggressive outside the blue paint, every once in a while they may have to pay a price.
Don't get me wrong; I don't want anyone to get hurt, because an NHL without Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo isn't as good as one with them. But the fact remains occasional goalie contact is merely a by-product of opening up the neutral zone without the clutching and grabbing, which allows skill to rule.
And did they have to change major rules to accomplish that? No. They simply enforced rules that were already in place.
Teammates of goalies shouldn't get off scot-free either. Toronto's Jason Blake skating 200 feet to pile-drive a N.Y. Ranger into the back of Vesa Toskala's knee wasn't the smartest thing he ever did. (Chris Pronger, earlier in his career, also had a bad habit of cross-checking honest, hard-working guys into their future Hall of Fame goalies as well.)
I don't condone crease crashing and I think the referees should penalize players who blatantly run goalies. That will lead to more power plays and more goals.
So we have Bryan Marchment to thank for the knee-on-knee debate. Scott Stevens is responsible for the hits-to-the-head debate. Words caught when Georges Laraque wore a TV microphone during a game helped spark the staged fighting topic, but for the life of me I can't remember who started all this rubbish about guys running the goalies.
