Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
And indeed that's the fundamental change i think is required. I understand that historically what you describe is true. But the concept of "finishing your check" has often been used to justify a player hitting another player with no intent to get the puck.
So I acknowledge this has been part of the game. And that some fans love it.
But that is indeed one of the elements that I think should be removed.
The best dman of our generation (Nik Lindstrom) was all about getting the puck from you. He almost never took penalties. He just cared about getting the little round thing away from you. That's what it should be.
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This represents a significant majority of bodychecks in today's game and I think there are ways make the game safe without eliminating this from the game.
No doubt Lidstrom was a great defenseman. I enjoyed watching him play.
I enjoyed watching Robyn Regehr play as well.
And to reference back to my back and forth with textcritic, this really is the point. Eliminating fighting and head hits (which by the way are subjective) are entirely different than eliminating the finishing of a check.
Because then what are you left with?
1) Open ice hits on the puck carrier. These are rare as hell, and often come from players playing with their heads down. Candidly I don't derive much joy from guys getting blown up at full speed. That's where injuries happen.
2) Hits along the boards where guys have the puck on their stick. I don't know how you can eliminate finishing your check without getting rid of these as well.
I appreciate Jiri's perspective on this and think it's a good debate. But let's not pretend we're talking about getting rid of fighting and head shots and everything will sort itself out. It's a change where the majority of hitting comes out of the game.
And if you think that needs to happen, IMO it would be very hard to be a fan of today's game or advocate anyone playing it at a competitive level.
My argument here is heavily influenced by the fact my son has played competitive hockey for years. If I thought most hitting doesn't belong in hockey, don't think I could live with that fact. Or spending time and money on watching the current product in the NHL.
Eliminating fighting, hitting from behind, head shots. Yeah. I personally don't want that in the game and wish the NHL would take the lead in showing they were serious about it.