NHL

TAKE A CHILL!

TORONTO – The hockey police were at it again this week, fretting and fussing because of injuries sustained by Matt Cullen as a result of an open-ice check he took from Colton Orr at the Garden on Wednesday while cutting across the Rangers zone carrying the puck with his head down.

It was not a hit to the head. It was not an illegal hit, either, despite the illegitimate decision by the four-man officiating crew that originally made no call, but upon seeing Cullen flat on the ice and briefly unconscious, then took the cowardly way out and gave Orr a five-minute major for interference after a lengthy caucus.

NHL VP Colin Campbell’s decision not to suspend Orr after a review of the video is evidence enough that no foul had been committed in the collision. Regardless, we were inundated again in the play’s aftermath by pleas from the pseudo-intelligentsia for the restoration of “respect” between players; about how even if the check was legal, it was somehow unethical. Of course, the paralysis card was played, as in, “Does someone have to be paralyzed before this stops?”

But before what stops, exactly? Open-ice hits to players who put themselves in vulnerable positions carrying the puck? Open-ice hits that are too hard? Open-ice hits, entirely? Or all manner of physical play in a sport that becomes increasingly sanitized by the day?

There’s no doubt. Players are much bigger, much stronger and much faster; thus, the force of impact between players is greater than it was 30 years ago when most players were under 6-feet and weighed less than 200 pounds. As such, players are more liable to suffer injuries as a result of high-speed collisions. As such, it’s more dangerous out there than it’s ever been; or at least that’s the refrain.

Except it isn’t more dangerous. Spearing, a staple five and four decades ago, has pretty much been eliminated. Slashing, a staple three and two decades ago, is essentially a thing of the past. Low-bridge checks to the knees, commonplace through most of the sport’s history, have all but disappeared from the landscape, as well.

Hits to the head are indeed an issue, and so are checks from behind into the wall. The league and the Players’ Association should do whatever they can to eradicate them from the game. Penalties for infractions – actual ones, that is – should be stiff. Players should be educated. Players should be admonished – those who would deliver hits from behind and those who would be equally culpable by turning their backs with the puck in order to invite such hits to thus gain power-play advantages for their teams. Anything that can be done to develop safer equipment should and must be done, and with all deliberate speed.

But it serves no purpose other than advancing an unspoken agenda to eliminate checking altogether, to turn a no-fault injury off a legal, open-ice hit – what was Orr supposed to do, allow Cullen to dangle, aim lower on the check; lower than what? – into a cause celebre.

There are risks involved in playing a collision sport. No legislation can eliminate them. The fine line between grace and violence, the counterpoint between the speedy finesse player and the lurking physical opponent; this is what makes hockey the compelling game that it is. The unending campaign by the pseudo-intellectuals to turn the game into a ballet must be met with resistance.

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Can we all agree that Tampa Bay’s Jay Feaster has done the poorest job of managing the CBA of any NHL GM, and that he will maintain his job only until a new owner is in place to dismiss him?

And also that whichever team hires John Tortorella after he, too, is dismissed by the next owner (if not sooner), will be getting one of the elite coaches in all the land?

The New Year’s Day outdoor game in Buffalo between the Penguins and Sabres that will be televised by NBC will no doubt be a spectacle as well as a three-hour commercial for the sport and its heritage.

But if the league and PA are serious about scheduling additional annual outdoor games, the emphasis in the US should be on playing them in meaningful venues, and not simply in assorted football stadiums for the purpose of generating larger revenues.

With Rangers-Islanders at Yankee Stadium out of the picture, the NHL should focus on creating a 2008-09 Rangers-Bruins extravaganza at Fenway Park, old-timers game and all. Could there be a more romantic setting for a game than having the Green Monster as a backdrop?

Just one caveat – Jean Ratelle and Brad Park are Rangers in the old-timers game or the whole thing is off.

larry.brooks@nypost.com