Ultimate Hockey Thread

[dyimages]

Few posters were right, we hi-jacked the Playoff Beard thread with our musing of hockey and the NHL (sorry glen24). so I thought a Ultimate Hockey thread where we can continue the playoff banter and musings of everything hockey.

Of the hockey fans how many follow hockey outside the NHL. Women's, IIHF, NCAA, KHL, AHL?

Here in Canada we have a ton of hockey we can follow if we choose. Personally I am a big fan of the Women's NCAA game. The NHL as much as I love my Maple Leafs (go ahead open invite to pot shots) has been losing my interest as of late. I know partially the Leafs not making the playoffs 6 years in a row is part of it. But it is also where the game is going. The post lock out rule changes to remove the obstruction was much needed but I think it has just opened the door for the violent hits we are seeing now. Now before any of my fellow Beaver loving canuks say WTF, hitting is part of the game, I agree and nobody likes a good hockey dust up more than me. But when I grew up playing Hockey the purpose of a body check was to seperate player from puck. Now it is seperate head from body. I think some of this "finishing a check" BS is just an excuse to run someone after they no longer have the puck.

There was allot of talk towrads the end of the season about rule changes to fix this. But rule changes are not needed and they risk creating another dominoe effect like the obstruction did IMO. Call the rules that are in the book. Boarding, Charging and my personal favorite Intent to injure. They are all there, it is just how the game is called.

/rant

Peace Love and Hockey
~d

Edit: Might as well throw a little bragging in while I am at it. This is my youngest at provincial championships last weekend