there is a small percentage of players involved in contact sports that could survive playing their respective sport the way all these games were played prior to 1980 much less thrive.
slapshot didn’t overplay the violence in hockey, it offered a different view of it. The rules and violence in 70’s football makes today’s game look light touch football. Basketball? Ha!
Just like Dave Semenko gave Gretzky a playing surface free of fear by savagely beating any player who even looked at Gretz the wrong way, modern sports has become the equivalent of rhythmic gymnastics. Sure it takes amazing talent… but, come on. My high school school soccer team was more intimidating than some current nhl hockey teams. If a contact sport removes intimidation from the game then we might as well not keep score and have a panel of judges give each team a rating and whoever rates higher, wins the game. lol. Maybe we could attach ribbons to their uniforms. That would probably look amazing.