[Ahdharr]

Being a lifelong hockey player and fan, I'm hoping for a new season. Last years playoffs were the dirtiest I've ever seen. The Dallas Stars and Detroit Redwings took cheap shots and dirty play to a whole new level last year.

The refereeing in the Anaheim Ducks vs. Dallas Stars Series was so horribly skewed towards the Dallas Stars that I couldn't bear watching anymore, (despite the fact that it wasn't a crucial series to me, as the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators weren't effected by it).

I'm somewhat angered by the unfair officiating on it despite the Ducks heavy contact style of play. However, The Ducks style of play is to be admired as it is just good "Old Time Hockey" that was almost identical in intensity of the 1980s Edmonton Oiler dynasty that Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Tika Essinen and Grant Fuhr, established.

I think the officails in the NHL need to be retooled by the veteran officials that know that when Mike Modano or Nicholas Lidstrom have their feet off the ice before even bumping into an opposing teams stick that there needs to be a call that is a 21 letter, two word phrase rather than hooking or tripping. Of course old farts like those two need to be productive in some manner since they can't do much else than throw the puck away these days.

Furthermore The Detroit Redwings have taken monopolizing of a sport with a supposed "salary cap" to a whole new level. The Detroit Redwings gave more money in signing bonuses to players who would have placed them far above the so-called salary cap by a wide margin. Instead the Redwings handed out signing bonuses that were greater in cost than almost every other single team in the league total salaries were last year.
This past year has truly made me change the phrase I use for them from the "Yankees of hockey" to referring to the New York Yankees as the "Redwings of baseball."

I truly hope that this year a new slate can be cleaned. However, with the likenesses of Alexander Ovetchkin, Sidney Crosby, Ryan Getzlaf, and Evgeni Malkin, I think the NHl can really bring excitement to the US as a whole to enjoy hockey in such a way that hasn't been seen since the days of the Original Six, when Hockey was for a short while, second only to Baseball in popularity in the US. Though now that other sports have come to the fore, I think you should all give the NHl a shot, especially since they are showing games on NBC, so you don't even need to have a team right near you to see it. ^^