Before we start wondering whether or not the National Hockey League officials will make it through the playoffs without allowing the traditional rodeos and water-skiing competitions to break out, we should concede the zebras this much. It hasn't always been perfect, but the NHL's officials did not capitulate this time. The new levels of enforcement not only made it to Christmas, they've lasted -- give or take the odd night -- right through the end of the 2005-06 regular season. History told us it wouldn't happen but it did. So if you, like me, doubted the veracity of the NHL's crackdown on obstruction, then you, like me, were dead wrong.