Last week I wrote my column on the issue of bodychecking and concussions and how it is going to take the traditions of Canada's favorite game away for better or for worse. Little did I know one of the most drastic changes was on its way as Hockey Canada moved to joining Quebec and Alberta to ban bodychecking across the country. A shocking decision based on data Hockey Canada collected, largely based on the contrast between hitting injuries in Quebec and Alberta that moved the Western province to ban bodychecking just weeks before.
The move was nearly unanimous and despite the reaction from the public was not divisive in the boardroom as only Hockey Saskatchewan voted to keep hitting at the peewee level.
With hitting out of the game, one coach will still be required to take a safe hitting course in preparation for hitting at the Bantam level of 13-15 year olds. Hockey Canada has made this move to be current with the new era of brain injury awareness, but they still have failed to realize that the culture of the game at the very moment is the root of the problem.
You see it almost every week from the Bantam to Junior level in rinks all over the country. From Yorkton to Dauphin to Kingston and beyond. A player blows up his opponent with a bone rattling hit. The crowd gets loud and the players go crazy on the bench. If the hit is "dirty" enough the opposing team jumps the offender. The same goes on in the pros, where players now have became famous for their frequency to earn suspension for giving their opponents concussions with over the line checking.
Yes, the hit to hurt your opponent is still ingrained as much into the culture as it has ever been despite the moves to take hitting out of the game. There might be less copies of Don Cherry's Rock Em' Sock Em' Hockey flying off the shelves today, but the big hit is what gets fans, and young players as excited as a nice toe drag or a 100 MPH slapshot.
That is the problem. Can we take that culture out of the game? Can coaches, and prominent members of the hockey community instill into the next generation of players that the bodycheck is a play to take your opponent off the puck, not a chance to take your opponent out of the game? That is the million dollar question that has largely been ignored.
Taking bodychecking out of peewee hockey is going to do squat unless the culture is changed. In fact it is a move entirely designed to keep kids not prepared to hit in the game for longer, to keep kids in peewee hockey, who are going to leave the game in Bantam when the game is going to be noticeably rougher with kids chasing the dream of Midget AAA and the WHL Bantam Draft at the same level as a young 13 year old who might only have stayed in the game because there was no hitting in peewee. Is that even fair?
Are the players going to be more protected because of this, or are they just going to avoid the brain trauma for another two years is a really hard question to ask and is one to digest. Kids drop out of the game more and more as their parents and in many cases the kids themselves distance themselves from a game that gets more and more brutal with age. A 15 year old is not the first person that a 13 year old who is shy about the hitting game should be having to see on the ice for the first time with hitting allowed.
This ruling is an attempt to sweep an issue that is going to continue to grow under the rug. Rather than make a statement on anything other than what we already know, that hitting causes concussions, Hockey Canada has simply decided to procrastinate their bad press to an age that seems like everyone will rally to keep hitting in the game, at the Bantam level. Things like equipment changes, and bans for coaches that encourage dangerous and reckless play from their teams in an attempt to change the culture around hitting were not made by Hockey Canada. They are appearing to be bold, but they are lions with no teeth on this issue.
Next fall kids at Bantam are still going to go out onto the ice at the Bantam level and be looking for the big hit to get his teammates going, to inject some energy into the game. When this happens the work Hockey Canada has done will have automatically failed. This fall that player will have more than likely will have at least had two years of game experience in attempting to be aware of the dangers he is about to face in jumping up to Bantam, in the future that preparation for the brutal truth about the game will no longer be there.
At the end of the day, this issue is not going away. With Saskatoon Minor Football putting concussion sensors in their helmets this year and the ruling by Hockey Canada we are seeing the revolution of minor sports unfolding under our very eyes. Yet the bitter truth remains, in contact sports ran off teenage testosterone and influenced by the top levels of their sport where the big hit is still glorified by the media and players alike.
The hitting is gone from peewee hockey, but the attitude stays the same. It is going to take more than what is going on right now to change that. This is an issue and health problem that is not going away. Hockey Canada should be aware of that.
