http://www.thestar.com/sports/gthl/...o-hockey-not-at-fault-for-society-s-ills?bn=1
By Rosie DiManno, Columnist
This is 13-year-old Justin Rizek recalling his first, second and third hockey-related head injuries.
"I got sandwiched by two guys. My head went back and hit the ice." He struggled to the bench and shortly thereafter to hospital. Level 4 concussion.
"I looked down to take my shot and the guy came and smashed my head. That one, I just lay there and didn't even try to get back to the bench because it's not worth it." Level 1 or 2 concussion.
"I was going against the boards and a guy hit me from behind. I came back to the bench and threw up everywhere." Level 3 concussion.
"After that, I decided to hang my skates up and not play any more."
This is Leaf GM Brian Burke, tie loosened, looking exhausted after pulling off two major NHL trades.
"At some level, if a player is going to move up the ladder and continue to play, it's contact hockey. This is a contact sport. You play a contact sport. There's going to be injuries. It's that simple. Now, if you don't want your son or daughter to get hurt, there are lots of wonderful options. Have them swim or have them golf. He might throw out his back, but he's never gonna get a concussion.
"It doesn't mean anything goes. It doesn't mean we shouldn't not try to make it safer, but it's a contact sport. What's distinctive about the sport in North America is the amount of contact that takes place. To me, there's a big difference between what we do at the pro level and the youth level ... To allow hitting before the Bantam level (ages 13-14) has never made sense to me. At some point, you have to put it in. But I don't get the angst. If you don't want to hit, play bandy."
The kid and the GM are not at counter-purposes. They inhabit the same broad hockey universe, the sports axis on which this country turns. But their perspectives reveal the practical and philosophical breadth of division when the subject of hockey is parsed by players, parents, management and league administrators. All points of view were expressed Sunday afternoon at a lively forum on whither minor hockey, presented by the Star, as follow-up to a recent five-part special series by reporters Robert Cribb and Lois Kalchman.
Upward of 200 keenly interested stakeholders attended the event at Harbourfront Centre, which featured an impressive roster of dais participants: From Burke to noted neurosurgeon and head safety advocate Dr. Charles Tator, GTHL president John Gardner and sports psychologist Paul Dennis, former NHLer Mike Peca, youth hockey officials and instructors.
Evident was the passion that "hockey people" bring to the game: how deeply they care about the organic health of the sport as youth recreation and the more specific safety issues for kids.
But equally apparent is that hockey – somewhat unfairly in my view – is being increasingly assessed through a prism of cultural and social concerns, from the erosion of respect for authority figures to racism and behavioural problems, child-rearing dilemmas more properly addressed in the home and in schools.
Hockey, as a game, has been hopelessly overanalyzed. Soon, it might end up on Oprah's couch.
It is silly to hold hockey responsible as a conduit for all that ails us as a society, or even to expect that social engineering be aggressively promoted through youth leagues. It's also clear that some parents and adult coaches bring their own pathologies and distemper to the rink, along with wildly unrealistic expectations guaranteed to choke all fun from the enterprise.
As Peca, who now coaches at the minor atom level in Buffalo, noted: "A lot of these parents are looking at their kids like they're being scouted already. Kids are being taught a me-first mentality."
Severe injuries remain an anomaly in all sports, which doesn't mean that steps should not be, indeed already have been, taken to reduce head injury risks, most significantly the ban on hitting from behind. There is a growing consensus, already applied in most leagues, on the need for a built-in repeat offender mechanism, although the civil libertarian in me balks at suspensions or bench minors for racial epithets and religious slurs, even for kids.
Such occurrences, I suggest, would be more valuably handled as a teaching opportunity, rather than punitively. They're youngsters. They say dumb and hurtful things in heated moments. Stuff they've heard at home or in the schoolyard. Better to elicit an apology while applying gentle instruction on person-to-person decency and mutual respect.
Nor am I convinced that kids automatically mimic the worst of what they witness in the NHL.
Or, conversely, that pro players should conduct themselves as role models, though mouthing off at officials is bad form, to say nothing of self-defeating, at all levels of hockey.
Said Burke: "I tell my guys, those referees know more about officiating than you'll ever know, so shut up."
Further: "A complaint is the prelude to an excuse."
Bumper-sticker worthy, that, and not just when the subject is hockey
By Rosie DiManno, Columnist
This is 13-year-old Justin Rizek recalling his first, second and third hockey-related head injuries.
"I got sandwiched by two guys. My head went back and hit the ice." He struggled to the bench and shortly thereafter to hospital. Level 4 concussion.
"I looked down to take my shot and the guy came and smashed my head. That one, I just lay there and didn't even try to get back to the bench because it's not worth it." Level 1 or 2 concussion.
"I was going against the boards and a guy hit me from behind. I came back to the bench and threw up everywhere." Level 3 concussion.
"After that, I decided to hang my skates up and not play any more."
This is Leaf GM Brian Burke, tie loosened, looking exhausted after pulling off two major NHL trades.
"At some level, if a player is going to move up the ladder and continue to play, it's contact hockey. This is a contact sport. You play a contact sport. There's going to be injuries. It's that simple. Now, if you don't want your son or daughter to get hurt, there are lots of wonderful options. Have them swim or have them golf. He might throw out his back, but he's never gonna get a concussion.
"It doesn't mean anything goes. It doesn't mean we shouldn't not try to make it safer, but it's a contact sport. What's distinctive about the sport in North America is the amount of contact that takes place. To me, there's a big difference between what we do at the pro level and the youth level ... To allow hitting before the Bantam level (ages 13-14) has never made sense to me. At some point, you have to put it in. But I don't get the angst. If you don't want to hit, play bandy."
The kid and the GM are not at counter-purposes. They inhabit the same broad hockey universe, the sports axis on which this country turns. But their perspectives reveal the practical and philosophical breadth of division when the subject of hockey is parsed by players, parents, management and league administrators. All points of view were expressed Sunday afternoon at a lively forum on whither minor hockey, presented by the Star, as follow-up to a recent five-part special series by reporters Robert Cribb and Lois Kalchman.
Upward of 200 keenly interested stakeholders attended the event at Harbourfront Centre, which featured an impressive roster of dais participants: From Burke to noted neurosurgeon and head safety advocate Dr. Charles Tator, GTHL president John Gardner and sports psychologist Paul Dennis, former NHLer Mike Peca, youth hockey officials and instructors.
Evident was the passion that "hockey people" bring to the game: how deeply they care about the organic health of the sport as youth recreation and the more specific safety issues for kids.
But equally apparent is that hockey – somewhat unfairly in my view – is being increasingly assessed through a prism of cultural and social concerns, from the erosion of respect for authority figures to racism and behavioural problems, child-rearing dilemmas more properly addressed in the home and in schools.
Hockey, as a game, has been hopelessly overanalyzed. Soon, it might end up on Oprah's couch.
It is silly to hold hockey responsible as a conduit for all that ails us as a society, or even to expect that social engineering be aggressively promoted through youth leagues. It's also clear that some parents and adult coaches bring their own pathologies and distemper to the rink, along with wildly unrealistic expectations guaranteed to choke all fun from the enterprise.
As Peca, who now coaches at the minor atom level in Buffalo, noted: "A lot of these parents are looking at their kids like they're being scouted already. Kids are being taught a me-first mentality."
Severe injuries remain an anomaly in all sports, which doesn't mean that steps should not be, indeed already have been, taken to reduce head injury risks, most significantly the ban on hitting from behind. There is a growing consensus, already applied in most leagues, on the need for a built-in repeat offender mechanism, although the civil libertarian in me balks at suspensions or bench minors for racial epithets and religious slurs, even for kids.
Such occurrences, I suggest, would be more valuably handled as a teaching opportunity, rather than punitively. They're youngsters. They say dumb and hurtful things in heated moments. Stuff they've heard at home or in the schoolyard. Better to elicit an apology while applying gentle instruction on person-to-person decency and mutual respect.
Nor am I convinced that kids automatically mimic the worst of what they witness in the NHL.
Or, conversely, that pro players should conduct themselves as role models, though mouthing off at officials is bad form, to say nothing of self-defeating, at all levels of hockey.
Said Burke: "I tell my guys, those referees know more about officiating than you'll ever know, so shut up."
Further: "A complaint is the prelude to an excuse."
Bumper-sticker worthy, that, and not just when the subject is hockey
