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SAFETY FIRST

• Let’s get this straight: At a time when player safety is being emphasized throughout the football universe, the NFL is looking to increase the schedule from 16 to 17 regular-season games per team.

• And, at a time when player safety is being emphasized throughout the hockey world, the guardians of the game tacitly condone bare-knuckles fighting. A movement is afoot in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to crack down on on-ice pugilism. Hopefully, the QMJHL will impose severe sanctions against fighting and other leagues, such as the WHL, will follow suit. The sight of teenagers exchanging punches for public consumption is sickening.

ICE CHIPS

• The 10th anniversary of Sidney Crosby’s “Golden Goal” — which gave Canada the men’s hockey gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics — was recently celebrated far and wide. Thanks to the finite wisdom of the NHL poohbahs, who are resistant to the notion of the league’s participation in the Olympics, will there ever be another “Golden Goal”?

• NHL players are strongly in favour of participating in the Olympics. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman should take that into consideration. Instead, there is myopia and obstinance.

• The Los Angeles Kings are a horrid team that is reliant on the neutral-zone trap. Good luck selling that in glitzy Hollywood.

• Too often, directors of hockey telecasts switch away from live action to show a goalie being pulled or some other image that could appear in an inset at the top of the screen. On Monday, for example, a Sportsnet camera zoomed in on an injured player heading to the bench just as the Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl scored one of his four goals against the Nashville Predators.

• Once upon a time, WHL fans could watch Draisaitl for under $20.

• Why does anyone cheer when a curler successfully blanks an end? Such a shot is hardly a crowd-pleaser.

ROLL CREDITS …

• Nice people who deserve a plug: Shannon England, Sara England, Jenna England, Shirley Schmirler, Rhett Dawson, Trent Meyer, Barb Butler, Willy Cole, Skip Olshefsky, Kevin Hodgson, Misty Dussion, Blake Dussion, Doug Russell, Ed Nedelcov, Darren Finkeldey, Nola Exner and Golden Yee.

rvanstone@postmedia.com

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