Following the commencement of the NHL’s Rule Enforcement Meetings, Senior Executive Vice President Colin Campbell highlighted one of the key developments from the two-day affair:
Players want to eliminate diving. Big time.
Here’s the skinny from Dan Rosen of NHL.com:
The players in the session, including Ottawa center Jason Spezza, Vancouver defenseman Kevin Bieksa and Toronto defenseman John-Michael Liles, led an impassioned discussion on enforcing the diving/embellishment rule (Rule 64.1), Campbell told NHL.com. He said the players want to distribute a list of divers around the League so it can be posted in all 30 dressing rooms and be delivered to the on-ice officials.
“They want to get [the list] out there,” Campbell said. “They want the player to be caught, whether it’s on the ice by the referee or by us on video. They are all tired of diving. The object is to make them stop eventually and, by doing that, they can get it out there around the League, embarrass them. The referees will know it, too, so the divers don’t get the benefit of the doubt.”
The “diver’s list” became big news following the last lockout when, early in the 2005-06 season, then-Kings forward Sean Avery blasted Campbell after being placed on the list -- one that publicly identified him not just as a diver, but a repeat offender.
Campbell responded to Avery’s criticisms with comments similar to those he made on Wednesday.
“We can tell a dive most of the time,” he said. “We’re just trying to get the emphatic ones and hope that players don’t want to be on a list with their names up in every dressing room.”
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