Last Updated on Wednesday, 31 December 2014 16:20
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
I have seen a number of high school games lately … more than I have seen in many years. I have seen varsity girls and varsity boys. I have also seen three boys’ JV games. For me, these have been eye-openers. It is my opinion that the hockey being played at the JV level is at times dangerous. It is not dangerous all the time. It is dangerous on occasion and I saw dangerous situations during every game.
I saw this danger in JV hockey watching relatively inexperienced players whose bodies have started to attain some mass. These players too often were putting themselves into a position to be hurt. That prospect might be true of every level of hockey to some extent, but I believe I saw more of it with these younger players with less refined levels of skill and knowledge. And on top of it all, the adolescent brain develops its cautionary awareness most times late in adolescence.
Often, I think, the player did not know he put himself into a vulnerable position and also too often others around him did not know he was in a vulnerable position. It’s a recipe for injury.
There is risk at every level of the game for both physical and emotional injury. Taking on some risk is a good thing. It is the big risk, the severe injury that scares us all. And I have to admit, there were at least a few times in these JV games where I was scared for the players.
I gave this some thought this weekend and I have to admit I have few answers. Much is being written about how to reduce risk for our young people playing our beloved game. Out east they are already implementing “warning tracks,” a shaded ice as one nears the boards. Call me a strong skeptic on that one. I have heard about padded boards. I don’t understand that one either.
Back in a day when physical body checking was first being introduced to the game, you could only physically take a player off the puck in one’s defensive zone. There is a good concept in there that we all ought to think about. Body checking in the defensive zone is in general terms more of a “hit to contain” concept. In the offensive zone, however, there can be more of a “hit to separate” concept. Those offensive zone hits at times also come with more speed as forwards have come through the neutral zone with speed and are working at higher speeds to get to places. I think there are some concepts here that need to be explored. I am just throwing out a seed for thought.
The more likely best solution is continued education and awareness by players, coaches and referees. But all that said, hockey has inherent risks and I think, at least from what I have seen, they are most visible at the JV level.
I said a short prayer during the National Anthem of the games I coached. Not to win or be held in high regard, but simply that the players of both teams played the game with their God-given abilities and that everyone ended the contest physically unharmed. We worry about a lot of things at times, but our only real big worry is catastrophic injury.
Painting the ice isn’t going to change anything. We have developed rules that have increased speed. Our players are getting bigger, stronger and faster. Only some innovative rules are going to make the game safer.
Kevin Hartzell was most recently the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s. His new book “Leading From the Ice” is now available at amazon.com.
