[Dion]

Ken Dryen on the game today

Where is the game going now?

Well, I don't know. I think you can reasonably predict that the speed and skill will continue to escalate. But I think that's part of the reason for the outrageous hits -- not the normal routine hits, but the out-of-the-blue ones that make you shudder. They're usually 4 or 5 feet from the boards and those have increased. In part, I think it's from speed. Speed gives you the opportunity to be reckless. In earlier times, you weren't close enough or moving fast enough to deliver that kind of hit. Now, there are opportunities and that's the dangerous part of it.

And there's a different kind of antagonism now. A slash on the wrist or a jab on the ankles is a different kind of antagonism than an elbow to the head. That's the part that can get overlooked and confused. People say, "Well, we've always had antagonism." Yes, but tell me what they used to do and how fundamentally dangerous it was or wasn't. At one time, the stick was the dangerous instrument in a game. What did leagues do? They passed stick rules. No high sticking or slashing or spearing or, worst of all, stick swinging. Well, now with the kind of protection players wear, the stick isn't the dangerous weapon anymore. It's the body that's the dangerous weapon. The pests, the instigators and the antagonists now do it with their body.

Finally, you get to the answer that isn't so easy. It's, how do we play?

Is there a way that the game can be just as exciting to watch and to play and to be less dangerous? Concussions don't just happen randomly; they can be random, but they also happen when you do certain things in certain places and often involving certain people. If you really focus in, you can see certain patterns. Then you put it to the coaches and put it to the players and say, "You guys are always adapting. You adapt every shift you're on the ice. Between games, you're imagining how you're going to do something, always trying to get ahead of the other guy."

Well, if this is one of those challenges, having coaches, managers and players figuring out how to change those techniques in those problem moments. Players do that all the time, but they don't talk about it. They're competitive and they adapt, like figuring out how against a certain defenseman when they go back for a puck, how you come out with control of the puck and not get blasted by the guy. It's learning how to control the moment.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/64241128/