The NHL general managers met this week in Florida to see if the new rule changes regarding head checking was as successful as they had all hoped. They also discussed some other minor changes but those were mostly left to be discussed once the season was over. Gary Bettman spoke to the media after the first day of meetings, insisting that the league had concussions under control and that the situation wasn't as bad as what was being said by the press. Statistics say that 44% of the concussions sustained this season are from legal hits which Bettman believes is a good thing but I have to disagree. How can a hit that is legal occur that often with that many concussions remain legal? Maybe if that hit was illegal players like Crosby, Savard and many others will not be missing in action at this important part of the season. Bettman listed a 5 point plan the NHL is putting in place to try to enforce illegal hits for efficiently.
The first part of the plan highlights equipment. Brendan Shanahan will league an investigation into equipment looking to find ways to make contact between players safer without compromising player safety from other aspects of the game like blocking shots and falling onto the ice. Shanahan is the right guy for the job because he has only been out of the game for a couple of years and should be able to find some interesting things that can improve equipment. The league needs to take the next step of taking the research Shanahan collects and making it standard for players to use instead of optional, because most players won't want to change what they are used to unless forced to. It will be interesting to see what these studies uncover.
The second part of the plan involves the immediate actions taken when a player is suspected of having a concussion. First, the player must be removed from the ice service if they are suspected to have a concussion for better evaluation. Then the player will be taken to a private room and evaluated by a team physician not athletic trainer to make sure the players immediate diagnosis is as accurate as possible. Finally the physician must follow specific guidelines during their evaluation of the player such as the Sports Concussion Assessment Tool again to improve the accuracy of the evaluation. I am actually surprised teams haven't already been doing these things but during a game the pressure is on to get back onto the ice as quickly as possible. I think the league will find more players with concussions with this method of evaluation but I think players may experience faster recovery times because the concussion will be detected earlier. I am glad the league is setting league wide guidelines for player evaluation because player safety should be the most important aspect of the game.
Next the league will elevate the standard for accountability to players and coaches for repeat offenders. This is important because we see repeat offenders all the time get away with other hits and the league needs to find away to eliminate these dangerous players from the game. We saw a case today where Matt Cooke of the Pittsburgh Penguins elbowed and unsuspecting NY Ranger in the head. Cooke was given a 5 minute major and a game misconduct and is likely to get a more than 5 game suspension for the play. Cooke is famous for hitting Marc Savard last season, a hit that gave Savard a concussion that could end his career more than a year latter. It will be interesting to see how the league applies these new rules in their first true test of these new rules.
Step 4 regards arena and building safety. After Max Pacioretty was hit by Zdeno Chara into the stanchion between the players benches at Montreal's Bell Centre the league is sending a safety engineer to all of the rinks in the league to determine if in any changes need to be made to improve player safety. Don Cherry always has suggestions for rink safety but a proper evaluation should give the information it needs to improve all the rinks. Since there are very few restrictions on rink layout right now it will be good for someone to go and review the rinks to see what works and what doesn't and hopefully come out with a league wide design for a rink that is safe for the fans and the players.
Finally a committee of retired players who have played in the post lockout NHL, specifically Steve Yzerman, Joe Nieuwendyk, Rob Blake and Brendan Shanahan, who will review and examine relevant topics to all of the above rule changes. This is a good idea, but considering 2 of these players are GMs themselves their could be bias. And one unnamed player suggested to Elliot Friedman of the CBC that the league should include non superstar players in this committee, since they see the game from an entirely different perspective. Time will tell if this committee finds actually finds anything in its discussion but like the above changes, they league should be able to get a better understanding of where it stands in player safety.
No comments:
Post a Comment