Hey, EVERYONE embellishes a bit in hockey. But to me, there is a difference bwtn embellishment and diving. When a stick touches the chin, Couture will whiplash a couple of inches then continue playing. LOTS and LOTS of players do this. Thornton drew attention on a real slash by taking off the glove and shaking his hand... there WAS a slash, perhaps he embellished a bit...
DIVING is tumbleweed Kesler or Sedin being shot by a sniper in the crease - when you pretend that something happened when it did not - THAT is a dive. I wish the NHL would embrace the word 'diving' and remove the word 'embellishment' - and then do something about it.
All of this said, it seems to me that the high water mark (oh, was that a pun?) for VAN and diving was last year's LA series. In this series, it seems to me that VAN's diving is much less noticeable than 2011 and 2010.
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