[SamAdams76]

There was something special about hockey in the 1970s. Very few players wore helmets so many of them were instantly recognizable without even having to know their numbers. Also, the fighting was much more part of the game. In most cases, the fighting players got nothing more than a five minute major and were back on the ice in no time at all to drop the gloves again.

The game got ruined somewhat by the mandatory helmets and the "neutral zone trap" type of play.

[OttawaFreeper]

Agreed, and I’ve expressed those sorts of sentiments on other hockey related threads. When helmets began to be legally phased in (through grandfathering) in 1979, the stickwork and cheap shot offences really began to increase and accelerated even more so with the instigator rule and more and more players wearing visors.

It’s interesting to consider how very wealthy ones like Bobby Hull or Frank Mahovlich or Bobby Orr or Phil Esposito or Guy Lafleur or even Ron Duguay and many others from the ‘60s to ‘80s era would be from endorsement dollars today because they were that recognizable from not wearing headgear. Even though helmets may have become that fact of life about the game by the near end of the 1970s by preventing injuries, still it looked better before with those aforementioned names and it may have been nice to have accommodated for that sort of thing.