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September
17, 2004
STATE OF THE GAMEPlay Safely in Today's Better Equipment
By Lyle Phair | From 
Advances in the production of hockey equipment
over the past 20 years have been nothing short of amazing. Really,
it wasn’t that long ago that hockey pants could be folded
up like a road map and they took up about the same amount of space
as that map would in your bag. Ditto for shoulder pads. The problem
was that like a map, they were paper-thin and didn’t offer
much protection.
The standard hockey gloves were very large and
cumbersome, extending virtually up to your armpit, offering very
little in the way of flexibility and were almost completely made
of leather. They were very heavy and incredibly heavy when wet.
Helmets were constructed of heavy plastics, lined with rigid foams
and very difficult to comfortably fit on your head – guaranteed
to leave you with dents in your head for several hours after wearing
it. Elbow pads and shin pads are pretty much the same, but offer
much more protection with molded plastics in places that foam and
leather used to cover.
Possibly the greatest advancement has been in
the development of skates. Not many years ago most skates were made
predominantly of leather or similar materials, which were initially
very rigid and difficult to break in but easily collected water
and broke down quickly. After the often-painful break-in period,
there always seemed to be a few weeks or, if you were lucky, months
where they felt just right, then they started to deteriorate and
felt like a completely different pair of skates. To make them last,
the sides had to be stitched to provide adequate support.
Equipment today has definitely improved the experience
of playing the game. Constructed of materials that are durable,
light, water-repellent and breathable, they allow flexibility for
players to comfortably play the game. Yet at the same time they
offer more than enough protection.
The one downside is that the equipment today is
probably somewhat bulkier in terms of size (but not weight). When
I left college over 20 years ago, I needed a hockey bag to take
my equipment with me so I went out and bought one. Today my 6-year-old
daughter’s equipment fills that bag, while my equipment requires
a bag more than twice that size.
Comparing a skate from today with one made even
five years ago is really interesting. While today’s skates
are comfortable, offer great support and are easier to “break-in”,
they are durable and don’t break down so that it feels like
the skate you are skating in a year from now is the same one you
are skating in now. While they are incredibly lighter, they also
offer way more protection than ever before. The old Cooper ankle
guards for shot-blocking defensemen are no longer required.
Most recently sticks have been the subject of
great debate, both at the professional level and in youth hockey.
With composite materials all but replacing the standard wooden sticks,
there are many saying that their negatives outweigh their positives.
Made completely of man-made materials, composites are definitely
lighter and consistently have a better feel than wood sticks (which
can vary greatly from stick to stick even in the exact same pattern).
Players can definitely shoot the puck harder, as it literally seems
to jump off of the composite’s blade.
At the upper levels of play, where cost is not
as much of a factor, the major drawback is their durability. With
scoring chances in a game seemingly becoming more rare each year,
can players afford to take the risk of their stick breaking on one
of the few chances they get?
At the youth level, many coaches argue that players
can’t handle the puck or make or catch a pass as well as they
can with a wooden stick. I believe (with no disrespect to native
Americans or native Canadians) as they say in golf, “it’s
not the arrow, it’s the Indian.” They will adapt; it
just takes some time. The downside at that level might be the cost,
although if they are durable enough to last three to five times
as long as a wooden stick, they are more than worth the price.
While the players of today benefit greatly from
the improvements in equipment, I am not so sure that the impact
on the game has been completely positive. There is no doubt that
there is the potential for the game to be played more safely than
ever, but there is a flipside.
The full facemask has probably had the greatest
influence on how the game is played and a whole generation of players
has now grown up playing the game with it. While eye injuries, dental
bills and stitches to the face have been all but eliminated (and
obviously rightly so), today’s players are also often missing
out on developing a healthy level of respect for themselves, their
opponents and the game itself.
Hopefully, without sounding too much like Don
Cherry, I can make my point. Without facemasks, to a certain extent,
the game policed itself. With the risk of getting a puck, a stick
or an errant elbow in the eye or the nose, you soon learned where
to go and where not to go. You also learned how to carry your stick
and make body contact so that you didn’t hit an opponent (or
a teammate) in the face. In some instances this respect for your
opponent was only due to fear of the retaliation you would incur,
but at the end of the day, it still made you play the game with
a little more caution.
Today, as well protected, and in some instances
over-protected as they are, kids have no fear of injury, to themselves
or to others and they play the game with reckless abandon –
which in some respects can open the door to other types of injuries.
Years ago, you never saw head checking like you do now. Players
literally target each other’s heads using their elbows, sticks
and gloves as weapons, not to eliminate the puck carrier from the
puck, but to inflict pain and punishment. The same holds true for
checking from behind.
On a related note, I understand mouth guards for
players in Pee Wee and up. They make sense, not necessarily for
protection of teeth, but for prevention of concussions. For players
younger than that, I don’t think they are necessary. Neck
guards, on the other hand, I don’t get. In almost 40 years
of hockey, I have only seen a couple of instances where someone
was cut in the neck. Stuffing a hunk of plastic in a kid’s
mouth and choking them with a thin strip of padding around their
neck seems counter-productive in a sport that requires plenty of
heavy breathing. But that’s just my opinion. Maybe I am old-school.
But back to the point. All of this adds to the
air of invincibility that kids have. Many of them have no fear whatsoever.
Some do, but sometimes fear can be a bad thing as well. The important
thing is that they have respect for themselves, their opponents
and the game, and that they play it hard, yet safely. In today’s
world, the game itself can no longer assist in teaching that. That
has to come from the coaches, referees and parents.
This article appears in the September issue
of New England Hockey Journal. Click
here to subscribe to the magazine.
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