Death of a player from a skate to the neck reignites hockey’s stubborn debate over protective gear | CityNews Calgary
It took the NHL till 1979 to mandate helmets and goalie masks for brand spanking new gamers. It wasn’t till 2013 that eye-protecting visors turned obligatory — grandfathered in for veterans, in fact. A handful of gamers nonetheless don’t put on them.
Broken jaws, smashed noses and concussions haven’t led to full face shields or cages in skilled males’s hockey at any degree, both. This week, the dying of an American participant from a skate blade to the neck throughout a recreation in England has reignited the talk over cut-resistant safety and why extra gamers don’t put on it.
That it is a debate could be shocking to some outdoors the game. It shouldn’t be. Change in hockey tends to be sluggish, if it comes in any respect.
Ask gamers if they’ve been reduce by a skate in an NHL recreation or apply, and the affirmative solutions are startlingly excessive. Some are well-known — Erik Karlsson’s Achilles tendon harm a decade in the past and Evander Kane’s sliced wrist final 12 months, for instance. The dying of a prep college participant in Connecticut in 2022 bought some desirous about security enhancements once more, and the subject is the speak of the game this week after Adam Johnson, a former NHL participant, died at a U.Ok. hospital from his reduce.
Just the identical, it’s unlikely to carry fast change to a sport stubbornly proof against it. The helmet mandate, for instance, got here 11 years and numerous head accidents after Bill Masterton turned the one NHL participant to die as a direct results of accidents suffered on the ice.
“It’s always tough to change,” player-turned-Philadelphia basic supervisor Danny Briere mentioned Wednesday. “Unfortunately, you’re always waiting for something tragic to happen for change to come. Hopefully we don’t have to wait for another one.”
Neck guards aren’t obligatory within the NHL, and neither is any form of reduce safety for wrists or the again of gamers’ legs, areas which can be extra weak than heavily-guarded shoulders and elbows. Karlsson’s ugly harm prompted extra gamers to attempt socks manufactured from Kevlar, the artificial fiber utilized in making bulletproof vests, and Cutlon, a material utilized in shark bite-resistant fits.
Some are reluctant nonetheless due to issues over consolation on the ice.
“They feel weird in my skates,” veteran Colorado defenseman Jack Johnson mentioned of the socks earlier than this season. “I wasn’t too happy with the way that I felt. But I’ve made it this far, so I’m going to stick with what’s working.”
Karlsson, now with Pittsburgh, mentioned he needs he was sporting cut-proof socks when a skate blade from Matt Cooke sliced by means of his left Achilles tendon in 2013.
“That’s probably what started that trend was my injury there because I don’t think anyone was really wearing it before that,” Karlsson mentioned. “I think most guys just wear it because it’s just like a normal sock anyways.”
It looks like almost everybody round hockey has a narrative of a skate reduce, whether or not they’ve been stitched up themselves or seen it occur. Colorado defenseman Josh Manson recalled a reduce when he was in juniors.
“I hit a guy and he fell back and kind of kicked up and kicked me in the stomach. I went into the penalty box and as I’m sitting there, like kind of felt something burning. So I lifted up my shirt and there was blood just kind of pouring down,” he mentioned. “It was as if like you took a sharp knife on a piece of steak and just kind of like dragged it along it and opened up the top a little bit.”
He was sewed up “in, like, the laundry room” and performed the remainder of the sport.
In 1989, Buffalo goaltender Clint Malarchuk’s neck was sliced open by a skate throughout a recreation and in 2008 it occurred to Florida ahead Richard Zednik. Both bought fast assist from trainers and medical personnel and each returned to the sport they liked.
Johnson, 29, won’t.
“It’s a game,” NHLPA govt director Marty Walsh mentioned. “It’s a job for the players, but it’s something that you don’t want anyone when they go to work to not come home.”
Advocates of obligatory neck guards like Mercyhurst College males’s hockey coach Rick Gotkin see Johnson’s dying as a wake-up name.
“These guys are skating on razor blades,” mentioned Gotkin, whose efforts started in earnest earlier this 12 months after seeing an Army participant want surgical procedure for a skate reduce to the neck. “You think about the course of a game: guys hunched over, scrambles in front of the goal and everything else, you could see where this is something that needs to be addressed.”
Washington’s T.J. Oshie mentioned he obtained greater than 100 messages since Johnson’s dying about cut-resistant safety made by his firm, and Warroad Hockey bought out inside hours. Bauer Hockey pledged to work with different tools producers to make neck guards extra extensively out there and, ultimately, obligatory, just like the England Ice Hockey Association did this week.
Mandates exist at youth ranges within the U.S., Canada and different international locations, however not within the NHL. League and union leaders have studied cut-resistant supplies for years and have resumed talks about them in gentle of the tragedy in England.
“Players are free to wear it now,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman mentioned. “Whether it’s something that’s mandated either directly or on a phased-in basis, that’s something we discuss with the players’ association.”
When Bettman’s son, Jordan, performed highschool hockey earlier than mandates have been in place, his spouse, Shelli, wouldn’t let him on the ice with out a neck guard. Bettman recalled one early apply when Jordan informed his mom the coach mentioned it was voluntary, and she or he responded, “No, it’s not.”
Long time Professional Hockey Players’ Association govt director Larry Landon feels the identical pull because the consultant of lots of of minor leaguers and a grandfather, who mentioned of his grandsons: “Do I want them to wear cut-resistant stuff? Absolutely. Paint their body with it if they have to.”
Walsh desires to have these discussions along with his members throughout the NHL. There is proof some attitudes are already altering.
“Wearing as much protective cut-proof gear as you can is always smart,” mentioned Colorado’s Ross Colton, who wears cut-proof socks pulled as much as his knees and protects his wrists with what resemble sweat bands. In youth hockey, Colton wore a layer that zipped up into just about a neck guard, after his dad pushed him to put on it.
Once sliced on the wrist and figuring out his father as soon as took a skate to the neck when he performed, Vegas defenseman Nicolas Hague felt in a different way hopes this was only a one-off fluke.
“It’s just such a shame that it even had to happen once,” Hague mentioned. “It’s hard. Guys are stuck in their ways.”
Sabres captain Kyle Okposo, who wears cut-resistant socks, in contrast this example in hockey to the on-field collapse of Damar Hamlin of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills as one thing that makes gamers recognize their moments within the recreation however doesn’t cease them from doing it for a residing.
“You play this game and you obviously understand there’s risk to it,” Okposo mentioned. “It’s incredibly unfortunate. It’s just one of those things as players I don’t think you can really allow your mind to go to that place. I think you just play the game the way you play it.”
Carolina captain Jordan Staal has been sporting protecting socks for years and is extra choices to keep away from getting reduce.
“I got one right up the leg, about 50 stitches, a long time ago,” he recalled. “They said I got a skate right up close to my artery — really close. … The big man upstairs was watching out for me there. I got very fortunate. It’s kind of what we flirt with, and you try to take as much protection as you can.”
___
AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow in Buffalo and AP freelance reporter Willie G. Ramirez contributed.
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL
Stephen Whyno And Pat Graham, The Associated Press
