
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman can try to legislate fighting from the league, but it'll be years before the fisted culture is completely siphoned from its players.
In Bettman's sanitized version of the game, it's only the old-time fighters who are being systematically neutered, while the "pests" - players like the Rangers' Ryan Hollweg who check people from behind into the boards - so often go unjudged.
Is fighting in hockey hurting its popularity in the States?
If anything the lack of fighting is hurting it. The big fights are about the only time that everyone talks about the NHL and it is not "bad" it is basically "dude, did you see that goalie beat on that other guy?"
C. Eng, many good points in your post.
I really just want to address the idea of "quality over quantity".
That sounds great as long at the method of eliminating teams takes into account the future and not just now. The hardest thing is to determine who to eliminate and all.
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