Misconception /Problem #1:
�I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out� is something you might hear from someone trying to make a smartassed comment about the supposed brutality of hockey. 1st and foremost, fighting is not only an essential part of the game, I wish the league would actually ENCOURAGE it. Here�s my reason for that. You have 5 guys on the ice at a time per team (6 if you include the goalie), part of the game is checking where you try to knock the guy off the puck. With bodies flying around the ice tempers are going to flare and people could get hurt. When this happens players look to take it out on the person that did this, especially if the check was cheap (included some face washing , getting the elbows or stick up, and whatnot). Would you rather have guys hit each other with weapons� a hockey stick is a weapon, or something even more potentially dangerous: hitting from behind. This incurs very serious injuries and the league tries cracking down on both of these very strictly (fines, suspensions, etc)� however I suggest a simpler solution. Let the players fight. Here�s how it works: Your guy comes and hits my star player behind the play, gets dirty tries to rough him up while the ref is watching the guys up the ice. My enforcer comes over and tells the guy �Listen, you touch any of my players like that again and I�ll pound your ass into the ice.� Your player says �Ok, you want to do something about it? Let�s drop �em� So they drop their gloves in a FAIR fight where injuries RARELY occur (a black eye is nothing compared to a high-stick) things are settled tempers go down , everyone is happy. Not entirely� here�s where a problem comes in:

Misconception/Problem #2:
The NHL gets bigger every year, it keeps growing in popularity (and in the writers opinion it�s about damn time). So the commissioner and his executives would like to see the NHL expand even more. With expansion brings in new markets like Anaheim (a team owned by Disney) so of course they would like to see less violence in the game so they can market this game to children. Problem: Hockey is a violent sport by its nature. So what do you do? Try to take out everything that�s existed before there was even ice and make it �P.C.� [Politically Correct, for those who didn't know...N8] so it doesn�t offend anyone. Well it offends the pi$$ out of me. What we really need more than anything is to stop expansion and focus on keeping the teams that are already in the league financially stable. Look at the teams from Canada, many have moved to increase revenues but leaving Canada with less hockey teams. That would be like all our baseball teams leaving the US and going to South America. Thank the gods that the really important teams are still there. Mainly: Toronto and of course, Montreal� Montreal is to Hockey what the Yankees are to baseball (both have 24 world championships, the NHL only recognizes 23 of Montreal�s because they won they�re first the year before the league was recognized) Losing a team like this to financial difficulties would be a major blemish on history.

Misconception/Problem #3:
Scoring is down over the last half decade across the league. So what does the league do? Tries to change things that should stay the way they are. The league as with any corporation will do anything and I mean anything to try and increase profits. What they�ve already done in the last year: Moved the goal line out 3 feet to try to keep the goalies from getting to the puck when it�s dumped in from neutral ice. Made it so that if the goalie fakes that he was going to play the puck and doesn�t, there is a 2 minute delay of game penalty. What they�ve thought of changing as well: Eliminating the red-line essentially taking away 2-line passes , changing the overtime to a 5 minute period of 4 on 4 or instead of overtime having a shoot-out. My contention is that defense has gotten much tighter over the years as teams realized (such as my beloved Red Wings) that offense alone isn�t going to get the job done. Making the games tighter more contested, I would rather see a 2-1 close game than a 12-3 blowout, it just isn�t all that exciting. One thing they should do if they really want to increase scoring is to get rid of the insane in-the-crease rule. This rule was intended to keep players from interfering with the goaltender (which is a noble gesture) However, what it has turned out to be is a goal-reversal. After every goal it�s automatically reviewed upstairs by the replay official and deemed whether the player was in the crease or not. 99.9% of the time it turns out that a players pinky toe or some small portion of his skate was in the crease so the goal is dis-allowed. If they want to increase scoring and excitement first off at least revise the in the crease rule so that if the player hasn�t interfered with the goalie the goal can still count, and the fans can still cheer.

I still love the game, I'm sure I always will. I can say I'll always love it, just so long as they don't change it to suit the wants of the people who only are bandwagon watchers. What I mean is for example the Washington Capitals made it to the finals against Detroit last year. Well, people from D.C. who had never seen hockey before in their lives now started watching , we shouldn't taylor the game to suit these people. We should do it for the loyal followers like Myself. (In Washington they actually had to broadcast the general rules of the game on the local news so people would have an idea of what is going on... I could never imagine that happening in HOCKEYTOWN!)