Well first thing first the first goalie to wear a mask was Jacques Plante in 1959 against the NY Rangers.
Second of all the reason for all the high sticking,and slashes sp?? is due to the pressure the players have to make their bonus, cause now if you want guys to performe you have to include that in their contracts (ex:if they make 25 goals they get x amount and every goal above that they get an extra x amount).
Third i don't know how long you've been watching hockey or how old you are but i can tell you this much, up here in Montreal where hockey is an institution, there are alot of old time hockey fans that are slowly stopping watching hockey games, and these are people that almost compare hockey to religion, these people grew up on hockey watching guys like Maurice Richard,Toe Blake, Eddy Shore,Bobby Clarke....The old Forum use to be full every single game, even when they moved to new new arena the seats used to be full all the time and if you look now they are slowy getting empty, and not just in Montreal, Boston, Pittsburgh and a few other places too, where hockey has had a home for a while now.
Like i said in my previous post there are no more big stars...do you know why a few years ago they changed the rules, cause there is alot less goals being made, and they had to come up with a plan to make the not so good hockey players look somewhat decent.
EDIT: I do not condone what happened last week, i find it pretty absurde what some players will do because they are pissed, i don't mind when 2 guys get into a fight, in fact i expect to see fights in a game, it's been part of hockey tradition since the early days.
