Checking in on Body Checking in the NHL

November 10th, 2009 by Nelson Santos Leave a reply »
There's been much discussion about all the injuries to the head and otherwise due to huge, fast, and hard body checks of late.

The NHL GMs will be discussing headshots during the next couple days. Of course, everyone has an opinion on what can be done to reduce the number of injuries.

Suggestions include the removal of the trapezoid, which would allow netminders to play the puck and thus—in theory—save their defensemen from enduring so much physical play. But that change would alter the current game.

There has been talk of equipment and its affects. This is an area where I think the NHL should spend many R&D dollars to ensure every player is well protected, but not launching themselves into each other wearing hard plastic suits of armour.

Some suggest being a bit more lenient on the obstructing of oncoming forecheckers to allow your teammate more time to move the puck. This simply can't be the solution or we will be back in the clutch and grab era by the All-Star break.

As we all know, you have to be very careful when you alter the rules of a sport, as it has a ripple effect on other facets of the game. One concern ...

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