First post...don't let my screen name give anyone the wrong opinion about me..LOL Since when does tough hockey have to do with playing dirty? There are two parts to playing the game, the skill part and the physical part. Both are almost equally important in the way you win games. If you can't match up skill wise, you will need to amp up the hitting and tough play to compete.
Being an ex-winger ... I can tell you playing dirty is all in the timing; and not just playing physical. If you do it right, you can throw one hell of an elbow without anyone seeing; same with a butt end. I'm not talking now about either team, just that you brought up 2 parts of hockey and did not acknowledge there is a grey area.
The point here though, is that those "hits" I described are "part of physical play" and also dirty as hell. I suppose too you can argue that getting away with it is a "skill". I rarely got penalties when I played; but I tell you I knew what could happen with a big enough a-hole out there and made damn sure I stayed away from those types (usually). I did cop one hell of an elbow to the head one night... made me rethink late night week night checking league hockey (that plus my team sucked, and I had a full time job I needed to worry about more).
I doubt you can make contact with another guy's stick and break it without it being a callable slash.
So, I am not exactly sure that there are only 2 parts to hockey - it isn't so black and white.
Now to be sure the refs involved add to this - as they set the tone by what they will call and what they won't - and it is very important, as a player, to have a ref that calls things consistently no matter which way they go - it are those refs that aren't so consistent when you start seeing the games get out of control.
