It's Griping Season in the NHL

If hockey writers and columnists ever approved of the National Hockey League's game, would they have anything left to write about?

From the same crowd that spent the last decade or so howling for stricter rules enforcement and an end to the unsightly ritual of the hockey fight, we're now getting calls for relaxed refereeing and more fights.

"The obstruction crackdown is going too far," says Elliotte Friedman at CBC.ca.

"Since the late '80s, the Lords of the Boards have done virtually everything within their power to take fighting out of the game," grumbles Kevin Dupont at MSNBC. "My guess is, they didn’t expect the passion to go with it."

Whatever they do, the Lords would be fools if they expect Dupont and his brethren to like it. Regardless of the merits of either argument, there can be no doubting that the NHL columnist is a perpetually aggrieved creature, happy only when he's unhappy.

But somebody out there must like this game, given that the salary cap is going up again.