Hockey is at a crossroads. You can see it every night someone lays a big hit. The play is reviewed in every angle possible and analysts attempt to break it down step by step, saying terms like "principle point of contact" and trying to determine if the player was attempting to make contact with the other skaters head. Not noting that it is nearly impossible to determine such a thing in the fastest contact sport on earth in which players continue to get faster and faster while the ice stays at the same small dimensions it always has been, making high impact contact merely a statistical guarantee. Yet the TSN/Sportsnet/CBC analysts still parade themselves out there as the game continues to lean more and more towards a new style of the sport, one where finishing your checks in the open ice, or hard hitting for any matter, is slowly but surely being phased out of the game.
You see it in the minor levels as well, Alberta just moved hitting out of the Peewee level making the controversial move to ban bodychecking until Bantam. The motive is to avoid concussions, the newest hot button issue in minor and professional sports as more and more research has shown something that we all should have known all along, that brain injuries cause brain damage. The concern mixed with the newest generation of parents and their extremely heightened concern over their kids getting injured playing sports has created a situation where the voice to remove hitting at any level possible has became louder than the coaches, parents, and even players that wish to keep it in the game.
Yet as the majority of the sports world bemoans concussions, we still celebrate hitting nearly as much as we used to. Detroit Red Wings blueliner Niklas Kronwall was dedicated a five minute special feature on SportsCentre and the NHL on TSN's playoff coverage on his big hits. Joe Louis Arena goes even crazier for Kron-wall, chanting "You got Kronwall'd" after the Swedish born Kronwall dishes out a big hit, often leaving his feet to do so at an opponent who has his head down leaving his own zone. This special came just days after San Jose Sharks player Raffi Torres was suspended for the remainder of the second round series with the Los Angeles Kings for finishing a check of Yorkton's Jarret Stoll, further proving the double standard dilemma that is growing with each passing incident in the game of hockey. We love big hits, but we know concussions are wrong.
This was no more relevant than when Lars Eller was sprawled lifeless on the ice during the first round of the playoffs after a seemingly clean hit from the Ottawa Senators Eric Gryba. Canadiens defenseman Raphael Diaz sent Eller a suicide pass to the blueline, leading Eller right into Gryba, who was trying to make an interception off of Diaz' poor pass to create a turnover. Gryba was making a hockey play, one that any defenseman would be taught to make, he went for the puck and Eller was reaching for the errant puck with his head down forcing Gryba to collide with Eller. Gryba made "the principle point of contact" at the hip and Eller went crashing to the ice, landing face first. The scene of his bloody face and the bloody ice would make even the most hardened hockey fans cringe, but it was not a headshot and veteran referee Kerry Fraser enforced that by going on TSN and saying it was not a hit worthy of suspension or even a charging penalty major that Gryba was given during the game. Yet the Senators blueliner was given a two game suspension in the playoffs. The same happened to Torres, who was given a series suspension for his reputation of handing out injuries more than for the hit itself.
So now we are left with a game that benefits the puckhandler more and more just like in football where new rules about hitting receivers in the head has led many defensive backs complaining about the unfair double standard they are saddled with, soon we are going to see more and more hitters in the NHL shy away from finishing their checks, giving the offense the advantage of not having to worry about putting their own teammates in danger by playing the puck into tight windows. Is this right? No. But is it the easiest fix without changing the game to make it actually safer? Yes.
Reactionary measures are going to solve nothing. Junior, minor, and professional leagues can suspend and penalize players as stiffly and as harshly as they please, but at the end of the day the player who got a concussion still has a brain injury meaning the goal of the punishment was actually not achieved automatically. Taking body checking out of Peewee hockey also does not help prevent the change to make the game safer as players will have added years where as offensive players they do not need to keep the safety of their teammates in mind while making a pass or a move into the neutral zone.
How is that going to help players protect themselves? Alberta may be able to point that less concussions will happen in Peewee but as anyone can tell you that does not mean less concussions will happen in Bantam or Midget or that the data was not collected with a biased interest in mind as so often happens with all forms of research. The simple answer to the issue of preventing concussions in hockey is that there is no simple answer, and that a quick patch up fix job of saying "Don't do that" to players who at the same time are told to finish their checks is going to solve absolutely nothing.
If people are serious about taking concussions out of the game a full scale review of the sport from top to bottom needs to be made. From the hard plastic equipment that has still not been phased out, to the size of the ice surface that is becoming more and more cramped and dangerous as players are becoming bigger and faster and stronger the more developments in training and nutrition are made. Those who are serious about making the game safer need to look at making wholescale changes to the game to do so, punishing a bodycheck after the fact or taking learning how to keep your head up or preventing your teammate from getting caught with his head down after a dangerous pass is not going to be the answer. Which is why the game as we know it may be in its last stages.
Football is undergoing the same makeover with less and less parents willing to allow their kids the risk of playing a sport that has seen so many of its former stars suffer through the effects of CTE caused by head trauma. Now it seems like hockey is headed down the same road as the pro and junior game grapple with what to do to curb bad press from devastating injuries to the people who play the game. With no real answer to solve a complex health, sport, and societal issue this debate is not going away, those who are not in the game have made it their business and those in the game want the same thing, for the health of the players to be preserved, but they also are finding out that they might not be able to keep their game as they know it if they are going to make hockey a safer sport to play.
Questions will be left unanswered as the battle between health and the tradition of Canada's favorite sport. We do not know what direction the game of hockey is headed in, and perhaps won't know for years as we continue to wait for new studies and new ideas to come forth. One thing is for certain though, the game of hockey is going to look a lot different one day. Whether it is for better or for worse we will all have to wait and see to decide.
