What I have a problem with is that the original intent of a body check was to separate the man from the puck and that's long been lost.
Ditto on that observation. What we seem to have today is a milder version of what we called, back in the day,
Running Riot. Hit everything & everyone early, late, lunch & tea time, anytime. Put the guy through the boards, open ice from a partial crouch with an upward thrust which as we've seen can have devastating consequences.
Allan Stanley & Tim Horton had an interesting & unique system.
Horton was practically blind without glasses so
Stanley would call out signals & usher incoming forwards to the boards on
Hortons side with
Horton simply smothering the attacker with his famous
Bear Hug check, which is about as final (and clean) as
"finishing your check" can get.
When guys from that era & earlier, the
70's & 80's delivered a check open ice, they went for the legs, hips, chest. High hits were met with swift justice from the players fists. The introduction of the
Instigator Rule took what had been an issue dealt with by the players out of their hands.
"Finishing your check" does not mean
"finish the guys career" as so many of the current generation apparently fail to realize or grasp, and then of course feel dreadful for what they've wrought on some poor guy who is left spending hours, days, possibly years in a
"quiet room".
Note; as an amusing aside what with the biting incident in this years
SCF, Derek Sanderson once got into a fight with
Tim Horton & wound up in a full on
Bear Hug, biting
Horton as he apparently heard "first one, then another rib snap, figured it was the only way I could get out of it".....