I Don't think I care for hockey anymore

I remember quite clearly when I realized that I was losing my appetite for NHL hockey. It suddenly dawned on me that the game wasn't exciting anymore. I was watching my usual Saturday night game. Now around my house this had become a ritual for me. You see we were a family where I had 5 daughters and I think one of the main reasons I never missed the Saturday night game was that it was the one time of the week that I put my foot down and would say, the TV is mine for the next three hours, you can whine, cry, plead, shout beg it doesn't matter Saturday Night is Hockey Night in Eldon.

Anyway in this particular game someone was slashed and went down clutching his arm. The whistle was blown, the trainer jumped over the bench, the players milled around, the player was helped from the ice, the fans gave him a big cheer as he neared the bench, he left the ice and disappeared down a hallway leading to a dressing room. The lines were changed, the puck was dropped and the game was back on. Sounds like a typical hockey game, right, suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks, I was watching rec hockey it was like watching flag football instead of tackle, my mind drifted back to a happier day, let me tell you how the scene should have unfolded.

Robinson gobbles up the puck behind the net and feeds it up the left side to Steve Shutt, he dances across the blue line and fires a pass to Lemaire breaking down the middle. Look out, its a tremendous hit by Terry O'Reilly. He caught Lemaire looking back for the puck and nailed him just before as crossed the red line. Lemaire is laying on the ice, here comes the trainer. Oh oh -- Ferguson is cruising around looking for O'Reilly, he says something and there go the gloves. They circle each other and start to throw them, Ferguson gets an arm loose and lands one, two, three rights, O'Reilly connects with one of his own and they go down, here come the linesmen. There they go the box now and O'Reilly gestures to Ferguson who is making gestures of his own.Here comes the announcement.

Montreal penalty Ferguson 5 minutes for fighting, Boston penalty Terry O'Reilly 5 minutes for fighting ---- the time 8:45.

Meanwhile in the broadcast booth,Danny Gallivan says to Dick Irvin, "that was a good one Dick You don't see Lemaire get caught like that with his head down, but the pass from Shutt was a bit behind him".

"Well Danny" says Dick "you could see that one coming Ferguson and O'Reilly were eyeing each other up earlier on and you knew there was going to fireworks".

The puck was dropped and the game was back on, a tough game, best played by tough men that allowed players like Guy LeFleur, Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr bring you to your feet every game. Touch them and you're dead meat and everyone knew it.

And then along came Gary Bettman with his plans for an expansion to the South and the Americanization of the game began by bringing in political correctness to the jungle. There were two problems, the first is that he didn't understand that hockey has a heart and a soul and they are spelled "intimidation", when you take that out of the game you create something that just isn't hockey. I think it started with Howie Meeker and his "golly gee look at those Europeans handle that puck", you see thats how 165 pounders think the game should be played.

Bettman and expansion came along at a time when political correctness was beginning to take root. And because he saw the game through the eyes of an intellectual 140 pound man who was never King Kong in the schoolyard he naturally put his stamp on the game as he could envision himself playing it. And his vision was similar to that of Howie Meeker, the problem is it left a bunch guys pumped up with testosterone with no way to let it out.

You see with the coming of The Instigator Rule, if you fought, your team was now penalized and it is a very strong emotion when you are playing a team sport that you don't let the team down, the result was each game builds up a lot of frustration which is evidenced by all the clutching and grabbing by a bunch of guys who are trying so hard to play by the "new rules". It was a sign of the times and followed the new thinking that men should become "sensitive communicators". Sounds like utopia, but there is going to be strange consequences that are unforseen when guys who naturally drag their knuckles on the ground and eat raw meat are forced to walk erect and become vegetarions.

What is so offensive about a hockey scrap anyway, clears the air and eliminates the guys who are kind of chicken at heart from acting out their agressions with some stick work because there is always the fear in the back of their head that if they whack someone, that the "enforcer" is going to hold them to account.

Once you remove fear, hockey becomes a different game, is that really to complicated to understand, it can't be and I see the pain in Don Cherrys eyes as he tries to get his points across each week. But Gary decided he wanted to take the raw edge off by eliminating fighting and we are now left with a bunch of sharks having to act like fantails doing their piroquettes when really they want to chew the arse out of everything that moves.

Gretzky was great because if you touched him Semenko or McSorley made you pay the price. Orr was magnificent and Wayne Cashman made sure he could do his stuff. These guardians of the stars brought the excitement of intimidation as they skated around and looked any potential aggressor in the eye and let them know that if they tried anything Mr. Knuckles would come a calling. What wonderful hockey, please bring back rules that create hockey teams where you need guys like John Ferguson, Tiger Williams, Orland Kurtenbach, John Wensink, Dave Schultz, Lou Fontanato, Chris Nilan and a hundred more like them, then you will have a game worth watching again.

Until then I am afraid I find NHL hockey to boring to waste my time with, the only thing I have watched Hockey Night in Canada forover the last 5 years is to catch Coach's Corner. If the NHL it ever starts up again I think my hockey watching will be limited to my Grand-sons, the Belfast Sabres Junior C's or I'll go into Charlottetown to see the PEI Rocket of the QMJHL, now thats more like hockey.