Violence in hockey

It's Canada's game. It's a great way to get active in our terribly cold winters, but has hockey become too violent? The sports talk shows are all over it. Don Cherry has weighed in on it and even I had my say in this hotly debated water-cooler topic.

To hear my CBC interview, you could check out the pod cast. (January 21, 2011)  What has been in the past, a panel discussion, was a one-to-one interview that day. It was early in the morning (for me anyway) and the questions took on  repetitive nature, more narrow than I had anticipated. However, I enjoyed the conversation and I always enjoy having a chance to contribute to the topic of the day.

If you would like to know more about hockey fights, there's a great website www.hockeyfights.com
Not that head shots and hockey fights are the same thing. They're not! And for the record, I would like to note that head shots have never been acceptable in the NHL. They've never been "allowed" so therefore it would be near impossible to ban them.  But we certainly CAN punish offenders when this happens. Minor hockey has made this move recently. For head shots (accidental) the penalty is 2 minutes, plus a 10 minute misconduct. For a deliberate hit, or with INTENT to injure, the penalty is 5 minutes, plus the 10 minute misconduct. It's a significant penalty as that player would be out for nearly 1/3 of the game.

What I would like to see, is what I articulated in the interview... better split second decision making. To do this, we need to educated kids in their early years of hockey (and all sports) that they should never, ever, deliberately attempt to injure another player. And I agree with Don Cherry in that players need to have more respect for each other.  This starts in the Timbits level. Even when kids are 4 and 5 years old, they can be taught the right way to chase down a puck etc. Hacking, slashing and slamming into each other, whether it's intentional or not, needs to stop and be corrected immediately. To end a hockey career at 5 or 25, because of an injury, would be terrible, even tragic. If we teach our kids properly now, they will make better decisions into the future. It's our job to protect them, not to change the world so they never face adversity.

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