I realize I haven't been very active here lately. There's really no reason, just nothing too horribly interesting going on.

When the snow melted, the water came into the house. That sucked. We now have a few chunks of missing drywall in one room, and no trim around our front door. Once it stops raining, Ejdo is going to put a drip plate up on the roof so that water coming off the shingles goes straight into the gutters. Hopefully this will help and we'll be able to fix all the stuff inside.

Sawyer managed some mischief on Saturday night. We left him out of the crate for the first time since the cookie incident and it failed miserably. He nosed his way into the pantry and ate all of his pig ears and treats, a small baggie of rice, and got into our expensive protein powder. We were not happy. Had to make him yarf it all up at 11 at night. Bad news.

The main reason for posting today though is hockey. The Olympics were fantastic. Almost every men's game had something exciting going on in it. I have a new "favorite" international player in Girts Akipans from Latvia. Coolest name ever. I hope that dude makes it someday.

Big issues going on in the NHL with regards to dangerous hits/play. This issue has really taken off and this week was a perfect example of why. Last Sunday, Matt Cooke of the Pens nailed Marc Savard of the Bruins with a questionable hit. Was it an elbow to the head, or a shoulder? Hard to tell, but either way Savard is out, for a while. Unluckily enough for Cooke, the NHL owners just happened to be meeting and discussing head hits. Surprisingly, he escaped without a suspension, but there is quite a bit of bad blood. I realize these aren't sized properly, but get over it. Here's the hit:

">

Then last night, Sid Crosby gets essentially slew-footed by Steve Downie of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Luckily Sid escaped without serious injury, but the fall looked NASTY. Here's the clip:

">

Both Downie and Cooke are notorious "dirty" players within the NHL. Some would argue that Mike Richards hit on David Booth would classify him as a dirty player. Clip of that hit:

">

Others would say that Alex Ovechkin is dirty because of his relatively common knee-on-knee hits or yesterdays boarding against Brian Campbell. Clip of that hit:

">

Regardless of whether these players are classified as dirty or clean, lucky or embellishers, whatever, there needs to be something done to protect players from these types of impacts. Often, players get hit with a larger penalty due to "intent to injure" the other player. Even if something is a clean hit, there can be an obvious intent to injure the other guy.

I have no idea how to put a system in place that would prevent hits to the head, or slew footing, or boarding, without removing some of the passion and speed from the game. It would be very difficult to play hockey successfully without going full bore. But perhaps a new penalty needs to be created. An "intent to injure" penalty. It could work similar to a game misconduct. Even if you make a clean hit on someone, if it is obvious that you were gunning for that guy, you get to visit the locker room for the remainder of the game. This seems similar to what happened to Ovie yesterday.

There are two major issues with this plan. First off, Ovie's hit yesterday would fall under this new penalty. However, this hasn't been created yet, so he was punished for something that wasn't exactly illegal. I don't agree with that. The other issue is that of embellishing. Sid gets accused of this on a regular basis and yes I'm sure he does it sometimes. I would be willing to bet that most players do it when they know it will work. But making an injury seem like more under this new penalty would cause there to be many more game misconducts handed out. The implications for all teams would be severe.

Since I'm not an owner of an NHL team, or on the NHL staff, its not my job to fix this problem. But as a fan, I hope they can figure it out. As great as it is to see a bone crushing, clean hit during a game, its heartbreaking to watch a player lie motionless on the ice. Something has to give.