Curling is the gentler of the Canadian winter sports, but many people would consider hockey as the true Canadian winter sport.
Last week, I spoke of how encouraging it is to see the interest of young people in curling; with hockey, the interest is there, in spades. You don't really have to encourage kids to take up the sport; there are multitudes of teams of all abilities at all age levels.
It does tend to be a pricy sport, but thankfully there are helpers, like KidSport, which assist families who can't afford the equipment and registration costs to be in this competitive sport.
While hockey continues to enjoy strong support, there is an issue that has come up, due in part to how hockey star Sidney Crosby has been affected, and trickling down, people are sitting up and taking notice as younger players are also being affected.
I am speaking about the growing concern over concussions. I won't go so far as to say this is a growing problem; I think it's more accurate to say the awareness of it has grown, and the reporting of it has certainly grown.
Safety equipment for hockey has increased in quality from when I played hockey; I shudder to say this, but I'm old enough to remember watching pro hockey players playing without helmets.
You can't convince me there were no concussions in those days - there definitely were. But today, it would be absolutely unthinkable for players to be out there without helmets or other safety gear on, at any age or experience level.
There is some interest afoot to remove hitting of any kind out of hockey, as has been done in some minor hockey programs or age levels.
For the younger age levels, particularly the house leagues, yes I agree, they should look into some form of this, such as no body-checking.
For really competitive teams, and in junior and the pros in particular, I cannot agree with this idea. To me, a clean, hard body-check is as much part of the game as tackling is to football. Do we hear bleeding hearts crying for all tackling to stop in football, with all the injuries that are part and parcel of that sport? Of course not.
Now, some people feel hockey can still be played without contact, ie., no body-checking. I submit these would be people who watch very little or no hockey, except maybe an Olympic game or a Stanley Cup final.
Anyone who follows and knows the sport, and/or has played it and enjoyed it for the fast-moving exciting sport that it is, knows checking is a vital and important part of the game. To take it out at all levels will fundamentally change the game, and to me, that would just be wrong.
