I never knew that professional ice hockey players were expected to be gentlemen. I guess Wayne Gretzky raised the bar for the league.
Despite the roughness of the sport, hockey players tend not to have as many issues off-ice as, say, football and basketball players.
It's probably a function of where these guys come from- you're talking about a lot of kids from small towns in Quebec, the rest of Canada, the northern US, as well as Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. You get few players from screwed up ghetto environments. The cost of equipment means that these guys tend to come from more middle-class backgrounds.
Tie Domi, a notorious goon, is an incredibly nice guy off-ice and is involved with various charitaties.