Triumph
Registered User
- Oct 2, 2007
- 13,545
- 13,928
The NHL in the 70s and 80s was incredibly dirty, it was open season on everyone. This myth that goons "protected the stars" is such nonsense.
The thing is, they might have done so, but A: some teams' goons weren't as good as others so presumably they weren't doing a lot of protecting B: the game had one referee and a limited number of camera angles, so there probably was a lot more behind the play stuff that was missed by the officials - hell even in my early days of being a fan, they didn't suspend John MacLean in the 1997 playoffs for breaking Niclas Sundstrom's arm because even though it was obvious he had slashed him behind the play, they didn't have a clear view of the slash. (And because they farcially didn't suspend Mark Messier for clotheslining Doug Gilmour in Game 1). That's all out the window, the league sees pretty much everything now.
Also the most important thing was C - goons started half of the shit themselves, this idea that the enforcer's job was just to enforce and not to also go after the other team's stars is a load of happy horseshit washed in nostalgia.