No Hitter

I was surprised to see this article on concussions in hockey. In it, Hall-of-Fame players Eric Lindros and Ken Dryden argue for radical action on concussions, including a seemingly unthinkable ban on hitting. You might expect that from the intellectual goalie Dryden, but it’s a shock coming from Lindros, who made his living as a physical player. But after a career derailed by concussions, he plays non-contact hockey for recreation, and has been surprised that he still enjoys it.

That brings up Thing I Don’t Get About Hockey, #973: much of the hockey that actually gets played is non-contact. Women’s hockey doesn’t have body checking, children at an early age don’t either. And a lot of the recreational leagues don’t. And yet, whenever anyone discusses violence in hockey, experts talk about the physical nature of the game as being integral. Take it away and it’s not the same sport anymore. So by implication, women, children, and part-time players are playing some other sport. Those ads we keep seeing during commercial breaks pleading with parents to let their kids play hockey, are in fact, encouraging them to play some weird de-fanged facsimile of the sport. It’s a hypocrisy where the sport’s gatekeepers want us to keep the sport violent, but also want to maintain the idea that the sport is a wholesome part of Canadian society.

To be clear, I don’t for a second believe that removing the physical contact from the game is going to happen any time soon, but having respected players talk seriously about it is going to shift what is acceptable in discussion. The sport’s going to need major changes to make the sport safe, but so far, they haven’t been willing to make changes that will change how the sport is played, unlike the NFL. But if respected folks are going around talking about a massive overhaul, then those play-changing alterations will seem more palatable.

I’m also glad that Dryden brings up another point that I wish someone would acknowledge: just how much the game has changed over the years. He notes that if you look back at games from the 50’s - 60’s, there’s actually less hitting than now. That’s something I’ve noticed whenever the CBC shows old games late at night. Even as late as the 1980’s, you can see a distinct reduction in the physicality of the game. Specifically, there seems to be a different philosophy, with players often passing up the opportunity to hit another player. Today, in the same position, anyone would hit an opposing player at any opportunity; there’s no question of tactics or choosing when to hit, you just hit anyone you can any time you can, that’s how it’s done.

But Dryden points out that it’s not hard to understand why there was less hitting: in the original-six era, shifts were much longer than they are now. Players didn’t have the energy to hit everything that moved, and even if they did, no one had the energy to get up the speed to hit particularly hard.

Oh, and this leads to Thing I Don’t Get About Hockey, #1,562: Hockey is an extremely traditional sport, yet no one seems to care that it keeps changing. I always thought that the fundamental difference between hockey and baseball is embodied by the implements of the sports: the bat and the stick. Both baseball bats and hockey sticks are traditionally made of wood. But as soon as someone considered making the bats out of something else, they immediately banned the concept and assured everyone that bats would be forever made out of wood. In hockey, they started making the sticks out of carbon fibre, and no one said a word. The players quietly made the revolutionary change without much pushback from the sport’s traditionalists who howl at any rule change. Now wood sticks are as rare as players with perfect teeth.

Similarly, if you ask anyone, they’ll say they never want the game to change, even though it’s now totally different from what it once was. Hopefully, more people will recognize how much and how frequently the sport changes on its own, and realize that we can improve it when necessary.