Please visit Puckerings for more hockey stuff by me 

In hockey, as in other major sports, there is often debate as to whether the quality of play has increased or decreased over time. Generally, old-timers will deride the current state of the game as amateurish compared to the good ‘ole days, while young whippersnappers scoff at the older game as being sad and slow.

In baseball there have been some attempts to quantify the problem, with fairly unreliable and inconclusive results. But in the opinions of most knowledgeable researchers, myself included, the quality of play (in any sport) has increased somewhat over time. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter one damn bit.

For instance, say there’s two players from two different eras. Player A played in 1920, and was twice as good as an average player for his time (let’s say we can quantify that). Player B played in 1990, and was also twice as good as average. Since the quality of play has increased over time, you could argue that Player B is necessarily a better player than Player A. While this is logical and probably literally true, it is wholly unfair to evaluate Player A in this way.

To understand why, we need to look at the reasons why the quality of play has improved. There are many reasons, including (but not limited to) the following:

(1) the collected wisdom and knowledge gained from hockey history up to that point (2) improved training methods and conditioning of athletes (3) improved equipment and technology (4) exposure to more and varied strategies and ideas

These are all valid. But while they have improved hockey as a whole over time, we cannot say that they have improved individual players. That is not fair. It is not Howie Morenz’s fault, for instance, that he had “primitive” skates, or that hockey had only been played professionally for 20-plus years at his time. He was the best he could be, given the circumstances in place at the time. If he had all the modern things available to him, he undoubtedly would have been a better player, but so would all those he played against.

Like all evolution, the changes that hockey players have undergone have produced a different animal, not necessarily a better animal. The best players are always the best players, no matter when they played. It is often said, for example, that a team from 1920 wouldn’t be able to compete in today’s game, and that is true. But it is also true that a team from today couldn’t compete in 1920. They might skate rings around the old-timers for a few minutes, but how would modern players perform if they had to play 40-50 minutes per game, with few substitutions? Players in 1920 are different from players in 2002; no better, no worse, just different.