There’s no point shying away from the word. Hockey is working its way back—or has never really moved away from—violence.
Eddie Shore ended Ace Bailey’s NHL career in the 1930s with a vicious hit.
In the early 1970s, I recall watching Wayne Cashman of the “Big Bad Bruins” swing his stick over his head violently and just miss hitting Minnesota’s Dennis Hextall in the head during a brawl between the two-teams. The NHL did nothing. It was just “part of the game”.
Later that decade, the “Broad Street Bullies” won two Stanley Cups. The Ontario legal system tried to jump in, and many argued the courts had no place in hockey rinks, because the sport ‘regulated’ itself.
Really?
We all remember the Todd Bertuzzi incident of a few years ago. Steve Moore has never played again. Last time I looked, Bertuzzi was still making millions, playing in the NHL. He represented Canada at the Olympics (selected by Hockey Canada), did he not, after that awful act?
A few folks say, “Oh, that’s terrible”, a player gets a slap on the wrist and we move on.
Really?
We all remember the Todd Bertuzzi incident of a few years ago. Steve Moore has never played again. Last time I looked, Bertuzzi was still making millions, playing in the NHL. He represented Canada at the Olympics (selected by Hockey Canada), did he not, after that awful act?
A few folks say, “Oh, that’s terrible”, a player gets a slap on the wrist and we move on.
Has our mentality changed at all?
Last week, a well-regarded junior player in the Quebec League elbowed an unsuspecting opposing player, leading to convulsions on the ice. A suspension “announcement” is due shortly.
That same player displayed on-ice behaviour at the recent world junior championships that should have been punished. Hockey Canada did nothing.
Does the NHL, or Hockey Canada, set the “attitude” tone for hockey behaviour?
This past November, in an earlier post, I wrote the following:
Players can say they don’t hit to injure, but they certainly hit to hurt, and given the reality of the human body, that’s really no distinction at all.
Players are bigger and skate faster than ever before. The huge equipment players wear is a big problem. It makes players feel they aren’t vulnerable, yet they are, in part because of the equipment they wear.
Football and hockey were both probably safer (still “hard-hitting” but safer) when players dressed more like rugby players than gladiators.
Think about: fans -and the media - have spent countless hours in recent years discussing the apparent epidemic of serious injuries—head shots (many still “legal” in hockey terms); hitting from behind situations; concussions; knee injuries and more.
It really does have to stop.
When you have 16 year-old playing against men, the risks are already there. Unless hockey authorities begin to absolutely, once and for all, outlaw hitting from behind or even the side, this problem will continue.
NHL GM’s met this week, and reports suggest movement was made about creating new rules to reduce dangerous hits. Too often in the past the league talked around the real issues. They can’t seem to decide what types of hits should be “legal”.
To me, the question is not what is legal in hockey terms, but what is dangerous.
The game has changed. Rules, and what is—and isn’t—allowed, should evolve as a result.
It has taken generations to get people to recognize the problems associated with smoking, for example, and to change behaviour. And still, probably 20% or more of people smoke in Canada and the United States.
Changing the mentality around hockey won’t be easy. You don’t want to lose the great parts of the action, but surely protecting the basic safety of vulnerable athletes—especially at the younger ages—must be a priority.
Again, let’s not pretend we’re making a big deal out of nothing. This is a big deal. Hockey is a great game, but has always experienced players who go way over “the line”.
We’ve talked about hitting from behind, for example, for years. Youth hockey has those “STOP” signs on the back of jerseys. Yet, watch almost any NHL game these days and you see guys throwing other players into the boards from behind.
Why?
We demand that players be rough and tough, and in the middle of intense competition, when athletes have heard this all their life, this is what you’re going to get. Violence.
It’s hard enough to made smart decisions in the middle of the day in a relaxed and comfortable environment—when you have time to make the best decision you can.
In sports, and certainly in hockey, players have a split-second to decide. Their competitive instincts, and the values they have been taught since they were kids, take over.
So you don’t want to dull the competitive instincts, but we better do something about the values were are installing in our young people when to comes to competition.
We can talk all day and junior hockey commissioners can use nice, thoughtful-sounding words about what’s not acceptable, but at the end of the day, nothing is actually changing.
We all realize professional sports is about winning—full stop. Big business. People talk about the importance of character but if, at the end of the day, a Sean Avery helps you win, he has a job. The same attitude is pervasive, not only at the Junior levels of sport, but all the way down through the minor/youth levels.
A visit to most any youth hockey rink on any given night, and listening to parents yell at opposing players who may be all of 10 years old, tells us all we need to know.
It’s sad, just really sad.
