I have a question for anyone who might have an opinion on this topic:
 
Over the past several years, I've been noticing a trend in players taking
dives to draw penalties.  A player will either lay down as if he was
unconscious or writhe around wildly to draw as much of a penalty as he can.
Then the team trainer will be brought to the ice, delaying the flow of the
game, the player will get up-get the obligatory applause- then be out
on the ice next shift skating his butt off.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes
the player is hurt, hockey is a rough game, but I just can't stomach watching
these guys get off taking dives.  Especially when people try to tell me
it's part of the game.  The most notable occurrence, which got me to write
this, happened tonight at the RPI-Vermont game.  Following one of the
Vermont goals, Askew of RPI crosschecked #10 Perrin (sp?) of Vermont, if
you could call it a crosscheck.  From where I was sitting it didn't look
bad at all.  Askew got a 5 minute major, and after around a 3 minute delay,
play began.  Roughly 2 minutes later, Perrin was back out, with his
dynamic-duo twin #8 St. Louis (sp?), playing up a storm.  Now was this
just a case of the Referee being harsher to a player checking a "star"
player or what?  I would just like to get some other opinions on this
topic, and I don't mean to take anything away from Vermont, they played a great
game (who couldn't against the Engineers tonight??? :) )
 
Sorry for being so long-winded,
 
-George Politis
 
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