Sing it, Aretha!

I've been a hockey fan nearly as long as I've been alive. Longer, if love of a game can be transferred through DNA. My dad has been a Leaf fan since the days of Armstrong and Bower--those halcyon days of yore when the Toronto Maple Leafs would routine sip champagne from Lord Stanley's chalice--and that love of the game and team has passed unto me, his son.

In my long-time tenure as a fan, the NHL has gone through several eras. We had the Broad Street Bullies of the 1970s: those Flyer teams were the personification of Conn Smythe's legendary aphorism "if you can't beat 'em in the alley, you can't beat 'em on the ice". Anyone thinking today's game too violent should be cautioned not to watch game tapes circa 1972-78.

The 1980s saw "firewagon hockey", characterized most often by high scoring games in which few leads were safe and few deficits insurmountable. Ten or more players cracked the 100-point barrier every season, led by Wayne Gretzky, who had more than 200 points an astonishing three times. Nobody before or since has had 200 points in a season even once, although Mario Lemieux did once finish with 199.

The NHL of the 1990s saw the addition of several teams in non-traditional markets and a corresponding dilution of the overall talent level, which led inevitably to a more defensive mindset among most NHL coaches. Goaltending, always vital to a team's post-season success, evolved tremendously over this period; few pre-1990s goalies would survive for long in today's game.

The 2000s brought us the NHL lockout and the subsequent salary cap, which has affected the game in many ways, some good (parity) and some not so good (ridiculous long-term, front-loaded contracts).

Here we are in 2011, and the state of the game is debatable. Tractor pulls still routinely outdraw NHL hockey on U.S. television. Several of those 1990s expansion teams are tottering on the brink of financial collapse. More concerning is the prevalence of cheap-shotting and overall dirty play. Here, let me Cooke you up an example:

HOW IS THIS MAN STILL ALLOWED TO PLAY NHL HOCKEY?

Cooke was recently suspended a paltry four games for his latest dirty play (not shown in this video) on Fedor Tyutin. In the past, he has ended players' seasons and in the case of Marc Savard, quite possibly careers. It's sickening to me that a player like this is allowed to draw a paycheque. This is behaviour than in most other contexts would land someone in jail.

And while Cooke may be the most egregious example of cheapshot artist, he's far from the only one. Indeed, reckless disregard has become almost a default style of play in recent years. An excellent opinion piece by James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail suggests the reason is money, more specifically the gross difference in salaries between the NHL and the minor leagues. Most of the players who deliberately intend to injure are those "on the bubble" between the glamour and comparative riches of the big leagues and minor league ignominy. Mirtle calls for the abolition of the "useless" fourth line in the hopes that it might mean a greater respect amongst players.

I'd go further, myself, and eliminate not lines but entire teams. The Hockey News once ran an interesting thought experiment: what if there were still only six teams in the NHL? They cherry-picked the rosters of thirty NHL squads to form six elite teams that would make even the most casual hockey fan drool. I wouldn't expect anything so drastic, but the contraction of even two teams would mean a noticeable uptick in the league talent level.

In the meantime--and perhaps that should be two words, "mean time"--we have cheapshots precipitating brawlfests like the Montreal-Boston game last week (fourteen fights) and the Pittsburgh-Islanders match the other night (seventeen fights).

Now, I'm not one of Mike Milbury's pansies. I like me a good fight in a hockey game, and Puck Daddy knows I'm not alone. Nobody leaves the room during a fight. But seventeen in one sixty minute game? That's not a hockey game, it's a joke. Not a funny one.

Don Cherry calls it "old time hockey". I have a real admiration for Cherry, but in this case he's wrong: "old-time hockey" didn't have quite so many cheap shots, and it did have a healthy respect for the opposition. You may have hated the team you were playing--hell, the Leafs and Canadiens players travelling from Toronto by train for the second leg of a home-and-home would avoid all contact with each other, even if it meant going without food and drink for the trip--but you recognized the guy beneath that hated jersey was a fellow hockey player and human being.

Respect. That is what's missing, and not just from hockey. There's little to no respect anywhere else any more. You certainly don't see it in politics. Nor in grocery stores. Trust me on that one. The worst thing is, once you allow disrespect to gain a foothold, it rapidly eats away at everything in sight until your entire culture is rotten to the core.