Quoting: sabresparaavida
In the 60s, the majority of players had to work other jobs in the offseason to support themselves. Now it’s training year round. Lots of players even outside the NHL have personal trainers, back then, not so many. Way more people play hockey now than in the sixties, and bigger pool of players=more talent at the top. There are more amateur leagues and teams for players to develop from. Players are faster, stronger and more skilled than the sixties. You put the avalanche of last year against any team from the sixties, and the avalanche would dominate.
This is what is so hilarious and annoying about you people of the internet generation, you just assume because of technology and whatever training and equipment of today that somehow magically everyone today is great and players before this modern time were crap. It’s not only arrogant and stupid but ignorant.
Why is everything you said utterly stupid? Because I never once said that players today aren’t in better shape. That’s completely useless to the discussion. You bring it up though over and over. The point of the discussion is not this utter nonsense of “player x couldn’t play today” or “player y would have dominated”. It’s like saying people who lived 200 years ago were stupid because they never went on the internet. That’s essentially what you’re saying.
So let’s get back to what should be very easy comprehend, when you only have 6 pro hockey teams it means only the very best can play in the NHL. If there were only 6 teams right now your 4th liners would be first liners. You’re a Sabres fan I see, Tage Thompson would be a 4th liner instead of a first liner. Most of your team would be in the AHL because they couldn’t make a team in a 6 team league. That’s how stiff the competition was.