National Hockey League general managers are meeting this week in Boca Raton, and the topic of head shots is front and center on the agenda. GM’s have discussed the problem of head shots in the past, but have only come to the conclusion that the issue has to be discussed further. Well, Sunday’s hit on Marc Savard by Matt Cooke should provide enough proof for the league to finally make head shots illegal.
Savard was blindsided by Cooke in the third period of Boston’s loss to Pittsburgh. Savard was trying to corral a bouncing puck in the attacking zone, when a backchecking Cooke delivered a devastating shoulder check directly to Savard’s head. Savard was left concussed on the ice, and had to be carried off the ice on a stretcher. It is not known how long Savard will be out of Boston’s line-up, but he could miss significant time, which places the Bruins playoff hopes in jeopardy.
This hit is just the latest example of the NHL’s need to penalize head shots in an effort to eliminate them from the game. General managers have long been hesitant to do anything with regard to head shots, because they feel it will take the body contact out of the game. The idea that penalizing the type of hit Cooke delivered on Sunday will take body contact out of hockey is utterly ridiculous. Solid, clean bodychecks occur multiple times in every National Hockey League game, they fall into a completely different category then head shots, and will continue to occur if head shots are outlawed. The argument of leaving head shots in the game to save body contact in hockey simply does not apply anymore.
Hockey is a fast, hard hitting sport that will always contain a certain level of danger to those participating, but that does not mean steps should not be taken to help protect the players. The National Football League takes steps every year to protect their players from injury. Those rule changes almost always involve taking some level of body contact out of the game. Fans certainly complain when the rules are introduced, and when questionable penalties are called, but the NFL continues to be North America’s largest sports league. The NFL has released that people tune in to watch the best players in the world perform at their craft. The league could bring more physicality back into the game by easing up on protecting the quarterback and defenseless receivers, but they know it will be harder to keep people interested when the likes of Payton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Philip Rivers, etc. are all on the injured list by week 4. Spectators want to watch the best players, and that is something the NHL apparently fails to realize. The National Hockey League benefits when players of Marc Savard’s calibre are on the ice making highly skilled offensive plays. If the league has to remove head shots in order to keep the best players on the ice, then rule changes have to be implemented to reduce these types of hits.
The question should not be if the NHL should act to reduce head shots, but what rules changes need to be implemented to make this work. It would appear that just suspending a player for a handful of games is not enough if the league is truly serious about reducing the number of incidents. The best approach would be to give the officials on the ice the ability to penalize the player for delivering such a devastating blow, followed by supplementary discipline from the league. If a player delivering a blindside head shot bodycheck were to receive a 5 minute major and game misconduct, then I would expect to see a drastic reduction in the number of incidents. Penalizing the team, and not just the player, will cause players to re-think delivering such a hit if they know it could cost their team a victory. Many are stating that it would be unfair to force officials to make these difficult calls, but making tough calls is part of their job description, and the fact that they will miss a few calls is no reason to abandon the effort.
The National Hockey League must make the new rule very clear and concise. The officials and players must be made clearly aware of what is and what is not considered a head shot. The Ontario Hockey league has effectively implemented such a rule, as has the Quebec Major Junior League, and the NCAA. There have still been some serious incidents involving head shots in these leagues, but significant supplimentary discipline has made it clear to everyone that this type of behaviour on the ice will not be tolerated. If these leagues are capable of taking steps to curb head shots, the NHL should be capable of doing the same.