There's one silver lining in the black cloud of the NHL lockout.
Not so many players getting their brains scrambled by the assorted infractions of blood and mayhem over which the league clucks, scolds and wags its apparently impotent finger.
True, the NHL polices the kind of play that leaves injured players brain-addled for weeks, months, or years, ends careers early and is linked with later dementias, cognitive and behavioural disorders from having brains slammed around inside skulls.
But enforcement has been inconsistent and half-hearted, accompanied by a brutish chorus about sissifying the game, fighting being part of hockey, that big hits are part of a contact sport and blah, blah, blah.
If players consent to the violence, it's their choice, say some. But whenever two dolts decide to prove their manhood with fisticuffs in the pub parking lot, the police break it up and charges are laid - regardless of mutual consent. Should one suffer a severe injury, then the penalty can be 10 years in prison, whether the victim agreed to the fight or not.
At a time when there's outrage over bullying after the inexpressibly sad recent suicide of a teenager, it's astonishing so few seem to associate online bullying with the broader culture of bullying that permeates social institutions - like sport.
Look, this isn't an attack on robust contact sports. But let's be honest. There's a big difference between a hard, clean defensive check that's intended to separate an attacking player from the puck and the kind of brutality intended to intimidate. That's what bullying is - intimidation - and sport thrives on it.
We're not going to educate the invertebrates of professional hockey or fans who see the game as a surrogate for the Roman arena any time soon. But perhaps we can do something about changing the culture gradually by eliminating such stuff from minor hockey, where parents and the public have a say.
Why don't we start with the littlest players, as Charles Tator, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto and founder of Think First, a national non-profit dedicated to preventing brain and spinal cord injuries, advocates in a recent letter to the Rick Hansen Institute forwarded to B.C. Hockey.
He wants bodychecking tossed from all peewee hockey. Others argue there's convincing medical evidence that hockey should ban the bodycheck until 14 or even older. Apologists for bodychecking argue players must be exposed early so they can learn to cope with it when they get to the NHL.
Give me a break. There are about 700 players on the active NHL roster at any given time. Only one out of every 3,000 minor hockey players survives two seasons in the NHL. That means 99.9 per cent of the 535,000 or so kids who register for minor hockey each year will never have professional careers. By what logic do we expose recreational players to unnecessary brain damage to prepare them for a professional payoff that eludes all but one tenth of one per cent?
"There is now compelling scientific evidence that children are at higher risk for head and neck injuries (i.e. concussions, spinal cord injuries) when bodychecking is allowed," Tator says. "We believe bodychecking should not be allowed at the atom and peewee levels."
Not so many players getting their brains scrambled by the assorted infractions of blood and mayhem over which the league clucks, scolds and wags its apparently impotent finger.
True, the NHL polices the kind of play that leaves injured players brain-addled for weeks, months, or years, ends careers early and is linked with later dementias, cognitive and behavioural disorders from having brains slammed around inside skulls.
But enforcement has been inconsistent and half-hearted, accompanied by a brutish chorus about sissifying the game, fighting being part of hockey, that big hits are part of a contact sport and blah, blah, blah.
If players consent to the violence, it's their choice, say some. But whenever two dolts decide to prove their manhood with fisticuffs in the pub parking lot, the police break it up and charges are laid - regardless of mutual consent. Should one suffer a severe injury, then the penalty can be 10 years in prison, whether the victim agreed to the fight or not.
At a time when there's outrage over bullying after the inexpressibly sad recent suicide of a teenager, it's astonishing so few seem to associate online bullying with the broader culture of bullying that permeates social institutions - like sport.
Look, this isn't an attack on robust contact sports. But let's be honest. There's a big difference between a hard, clean defensive check that's intended to separate an attacking player from the puck and the kind of brutality intended to intimidate. That's what bullying is - intimidation - and sport thrives on it.
We're not going to educate the invertebrates of professional hockey or fans who see the game as a surrogate for the Roman arena any time soon. But perhaps we can do something about changing the culture gradually by eliminating such stuff from minor hockey, where parents and the public have a say.
Why don't we start with the littlest players, as Charles Tator, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto and founder of Think First, a national non-profit dedicated to preventing brain and spinal cord injuries, advocates in a recent letter to the Rick Hansen Institute forwarded to B.C. Hockey.
He wants bodychecking tossed from all peewee hockey. Others argue there's convincing medical evidence that hockey should ban the bodycheck until 14 or even older. Apologists for bodychecking argue players must be exposed early so they can learn to cope with it when they get to the NHL.
Give me a break. There are about 700 players on the active NHL roster at any given time. Only one out of every 3,000 minor hockey players survives two seasons in the NHL. That means 99.9 per cent of the 535,000 or so kids who register for minor hockey each year will never have professional careers. By what logic do we expose recreational players to unnecessary brain damage to prepare them for a professional payoff that eludes all but one tenth of one per cent?
"There is now compelling scientific evidence that children are at higher risk for head and neck injuries (i.e. concussions, spinal cord injuries) when bodychecking is allowed," Tator says. "We believe bodychecking should not be allowed at the atom and peewee levels."
He goes further, arguing for more rigorous grouping of players into appropriate age and size groups.
For example, grouping players separated by two years - as happens in some minor leagues in B.C. - is a bad idea because age differences result in weight, strength and speed differentials that put smaller, younger players at greater risk of brain and spinal cord injury.
"Based on my medical experience and recent research findings" - this is one of Canada's leading brain surgeons speaking here - "I believe it extremely unwise with respect to player safety and injury prevention to mix players of more than one year age difference at this early stage of their development."
Tator urges elimination of all bodychecking from peewee, including rep play, and to divide atom and peewee rep play into one-year increments rather than the two years currently used.
I was at a junior game the other night and watched a 100-kilogram 18-year-old put a 75-kilogram 16-year-old out of the game with a blindside hit. This is the kind of culture we should actively discourage as a sports climate for youth - even if that's the kind of player for which the NHL wants minor hockey to stream.
Bullying doesn't build character, it just creates a toxic social environment. So those of us worried about bullying on Internet sites should be broadening our perspective and contemplating how this concern should inform our attitudes toward the culture of sport at both minor and professional levels.
For example, grouping players separated by two years - as happens in some minor leagues in B.C. - is a bad idea because age differences result in weight, strength and speed differentials that put smaller, younger players at greater risk of brain and spinal cord injury.
"Based on my medical experience and recent research findings" - this is one of Canada's leading brain surgeons speaking here - "I believe it extremely unwise with respect to player safety and injury prevention to mix players of more than one year age difference at this early stage of their development."
Tator urges elimination of all bodychecking from peewee, including rep play, and to divide atom and peewee rep play into one-year increments rather than the two years currently used.
I was at a junior game the other night and watched a 100-kilogram 18-year-old put a 75-kilogram 16-year-old out of the game with a blindside hit. This is the kind of culture we should actively discourage as a sports climate for youth - even if that's the kind of player for which the NHL wants minor hockey to stream.
Bullying doesn't build character, it just creates a toxic social environment. So those of us worried about bullying on Internet sites should be broadening our perspective and contemplating how this concern should inform our attitudes toward the culture of sport at both minor and professional levels.
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