Arn said:
While in the main I?m on board with the extremely fast and skilful NHL. And I?m glad that we don?t have guys fighting off face offs cos our star guy got hit by one of their not star guys 3 months ago.
I?m all for some of this tension between teams.
And I?m even more in favour of more goalie fights
I think in general most people agree with that. When violence springs out of genuine animosity between teams like, say, Detroit and Colorado then it's reasonably understandable as it's the sort of thing that happens in all sports and there's not much you can do to prevent it.
The problem for the NHL there though is that the Bertuzzi-Moore thing firmly established that the league can't trust players to decide for themselves what is an appropriate level of animosity in games like this. Not for any prudish "what's best for the game" sort of thing but from a very real legal liability standpoint.
Because, you know, all of these things tend to start with dirty or borderline hits. Lemieux on Draper, Moore on Naslund, Tkachuk on Kassian, etc.