BOSTON (CBS) – Bruins legend Derek Sanderson joined 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher & Rich in studio Tuesday for an all encompassing interview, and of course he had some great stories from his playing days.

Some hockey news making headlines this morning is yet another gutless, disgusting play by the Minnesota Wild’s Matt Cooke that occurred in Monday night’s game against the Colorado Avalanche.

Cooke, the 35-year-old who’s delivered more dirty hits in his career than one can count on two hands, stuck out his left knee and took out Colorado defenseman Tyson Barrie.

Cooke has been suspended six times in his career, all during his time with Pittsburgh, and he’s likely facing another for his hit on Barrie.

Sanderson commented on the play with T&R:

“That was bad. You go around blowing someone’s knee out, somebody’s gotta take care of that,” Sanderson said in reference to a form of retaliation against Cooke.

This led into a discussion about fighting in hockey. Sanderson, known for his affinity for dropping the gloves, voiced his support of fighting Tuesday and explained why it’s different now than when he laced up the skates.

“Why you have to keep fighting in hockey is it’s kind of a self managed violence. A self policing. If you do something cheap, somebody’s gonna get you back.

“That has somewhat been out of the game, because you could have a game against St. Louis and not see them for two years. You can’t stay mad that long. In the old days in the six-team league you saw teams 12, 14 times a year.”

Sanderson blames, in part, the increase in goon-type players like Matt Cooke and Buffalo’s John Scott to the expanded rosters that weren’t seen in his days.

When he played you had three lines of forwards — that’s it. The players’ association came in and got more jobs, and now the league being 30 teams deep doesn’t have enough skilled players to support all four lines.

“Hockey is a violent game played by violent people. If you don’t like violence watch golf. … [When I played], if somebody took a cheap shot at a teammate the closest guy to you would jump you, and you’re gonna fight everybody if you do that.”

Listen below for the full interview: