>>>I would also say that many that go to a hockey game don't go to see hockey.
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>>That may particularly true in Dallas because it is a bit of a social event. However, when the Stars signed Brett Hull, this sent tingles down the spine of most Stars fans. Contrast that to the ho-hum signing of Brent Sevryn (enforcer) during the off-season after Marchment took out Niewendyke in the first round of the 1998 playoffs. Skill and the allowed displaying of said skill will outsell goonism any day.
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>>As a season ticket holder, I want to see Modano skate instead of being hooked at, dragged down, etc., all the time
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>I think the fans want it both ways. They want to see the dazzling skills and they want to see the bone crushing checks. It's difficult to mix the two in hockey, isn't it?

Dean, hockey never was a game of bone-crushing body checks and stick always hovering around the head and taking runs at players as standard fare.
In historical films you will see the odd bone-crushing body check and no penalty called, because they can happen legally and in those days that's when they happened.

Somewhere along the way, possibly in a belief that American need blood and gore to attend, things changed and we've got what we have today. The view from here is that the attempt to draw US audiences (thus lucrative TV contracts) through these tactics has been a dismal failure.
In that light it only makes sense to try something else, and it sure makes sense to me to try it the way hockey got so popular in the first place.

I can understand Americans not being too impressed with curling but hockey played the way it used to be played sustained good attendance for New York and Boston and Detroit and Chicago. Why it was thought that it had to be goonized to sell elsewhere there is way beyond my simple comprehension.

cheers