Folks, This is Hockey. Injuries Happen.
By Adrian Dater
November 16, 2009
Yes, they’re absolutely right. Risk of dramatic head injuries are higher than the past because NHL players do hit harder because they are bigger, faster and stronger than the past, and the rinks are the exact same size.
The pure physics of it show that players are more susceptible to head injuries. And that’s why it is a good thing people are talking more about how to avoid more serious head injuries (one longtime former player and current NHL media member believes it’s only a matter of time before someone gets killed during an NHL game).
But, I’m sorry, I’m with Mike Milbury on this one: can we all just settle down a little?
We are still talking about hockey, right? Milbury, the other night on “Hockey Night in Canada”, finally asked in exasperation whether the reformers who are so concerned about “head shots” will want to introduce a flag-football aspect to the game?
Every year, there’s always some new cause celebre of the hockey media – besides the yearly “We should outlaw fighting” column by some tree-hugging stick-in-the-mud who watches three or four hockey games a year and then goes back to sipping Tazo chai tea lattes at Starbucks.
And the thing is, the hockey media can never make up its mind what it wants and is always wanting what it used to want to outlaw. Remember all the hand-wringing about goalies playing the puck years ago, then the rules change that introduced the trapezoid? Plenty of columns in the last year or two whining that goalies are too handicapped in their movements and that it’s ruining the game.
But the trapezoid is here to stay. The GMs, at their most recent meeting, beat back the complaints of a few contrarians.
But back to the head shots thing: this is hockey. As long as grown young men are on skates, playing for money and in fear of their jobs at all times, they are going to hit the opposing guy hard. Injuries, therefore, are going to happen. Nobody will ever be able to legislate injuries – some of them to the head – out of hockey. It would be like trying to legislate vapid comments from an episode of “The Hills.” It’s not going to happen.
OK, let’s up the suspension levels for hits that result in injuries to the head. Maybe make it a mandatory five-game sit-down for any flagrant hit to the head, especially when the other guy has his back turned and never saw it coming. Players will change their ways some when it starts hitting them in the wallet.
But, please, let’s stop trying to turn hockey into tiddly-winks. OK.?
Adrian Dater covers the NHL for the Denver Post
