With the NHL unveiling their Declaration of Principles for hockey and having every North American entity and the IIHF latch onto it is a great thing for the growth of hockey. I mean, it was even praised by His Holiness, Pope Francis— so you know it must be good.

But, when thinking about the whole Pope’s blessing thing…why was there only eight principles of this whole thing?? For those who follow or know the littlest thing about Catholicism; there’s really four big numbers: 7, 10, 12, and 40. I’m shocked that the Pope didn’t suggest two more principles in order to mirror the commandments; which– let’s be honest– seems to be the sense of happening here.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I had an idea on what the final two principles could be– especially given what this whole thing is all about: inclusiveness.

#9. Have some respect for your fellow player. We all know the big hit and all that seems cool and gets the highlights– but what about the other player in this situation?? Maybe they should have their head up, maybe you just accidentally stuck your leg out if they got past you– but have a bit of accountability for your actions out there and not just say it’s a “hockey play.”

#10. Honor the hockey mom and dad…to a point. Sure, they get up early and haul you around and bankroll your career; but you and your teammates should have to put up with the overactive parent. Players have the right to speak up when their parent isn’t acting properly and putting you in a bad situation with your teammates. Other parents should to and those offending parents need to have a reality check for the whole thing and not act like they’re doing nothing wrong.

There’s definitely others you could go about, but that’s up for the Martin Luther of the hockey world to put up their 95 Theses to this Declaration of Principles in a couple years.

It’s a mean-well effort and really a solid show of solidarity to make hockey available for every one in North America and the world, but mostly North America. If you add this to their “You Can Play” stand the NHL has taken, but they’re going to make sure that hockey is available to everyone and anyone who wants to take an interest– which is a great and noble ideal.

However, the one problem to all of this is people. Once you get people involved, you always have some numbskulls who ruin it for the rest of the group. Hopefully, that won’t happen for this project or the other projects where hockey wants everyone involved. One can only hope and follow all of these principles to make things a lot better on and off the ice.