The Infection

   

   
Is This Hockey's Future?


     Diving is a sickness.  It has infected Soccer like a plague, and the panzie Euro led FIFA has no desire to fix it.  They love having Arjen Robben defraud the world on the grandest stage.  The NHL can't end up like this, but it will, if the NHL doesn't do anything.   
     One of the best things about hockey, is that it is a sport of determination and grit.  Unlike soccer players, hockey players play through clutching and grabbing, play through slashing and tripping, or do they?  While the league has made some effort to not become the disgrace to sport that soccer has become, it isn't enough.
     Rick Nash's faked injury this weekend made me want to puke.  I was disgusted at what I was seeing and sickened to my core.  There is no place in hockey for theatrics.  I keep wanting to say, "Play like a man.", but I know that the women who play hockey have more grit than most of the men, and thus shouldn't be left out.  Since the NHL is committed to using replay, why can't it review penalties for faking, or diving?  It could, and it should.
     When the NHL wanted to get rid of bench clearing brawls, in one fell swoop, it did.  It made the punishment so harsh for the players, coaches, and teams, that I don't think they have ever had to levy any of those punishments.  The problem simply ceased to be a problem.  They could and should do this for diving.  Fifteen, twenty game suspensions sound about right.  Playoff bans, coaches suspensions, fines for everyone including the general managers, and owners.  If the penalty is harsh enough, it simply won't happen.
     Allowing diving, and fake injuries to continue is like allowing someone to die of tuberculosis.  There is freaking cure, so why didn't you use it.  The NHL needs to get off it's rear end and do something to save our sport.
I's day get him a tutu, but that would be an insult to ballerinas.

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