Monday, November 02, 2009
What's with the Injuries?
The players are bigger, faster and stronger. The number of jobs available is finite and everyone is battling for a position on a team. Add to the fact that "finishing your check" involves concussing your opponent without any discipline to worry about (head shots are legal, after all) and players get ridiculed for opting to play the puck as opposed to the player (evidenced by Kelly Hrudey criticizing Daniel Alfredsson for such play on Hockey Night in Canada, even though the example showed Alfredsson forcing a turnover) and it's no wonder the NHL has a laundry list of players on the shelf anywhere for a few days to a number of weeks to months in the season.
Alexander Ovechkin is the latest big name player to be hurt. Add that to the growing list of injured: Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Jason Spezza, Phil Kessel, Marc Savard, Ilya Kovalchuk, Evgeni Malkin. I'm not talking here about your bottom of the barrel fourth liners: This is a list of players that the fans pay their money to go see.
It was pointed out that about 100 NHL players are currently sidelined with some sort of injury. That's about 3-4 players per team. And it doesn't seem to be a trend that looks to get much better.
I'd like to see a couple of things changed. There are a lot of NHL old-school types who like the head-shots so that may not be outlawed anytime soon, but how about reducing the number of games in the schedule? The NHL is a gate driven league so that might be harder to change than the head shots, but with players suiting up for as many as five games a week, the wear and tear on their body has to be a concern. With little time to resist between match ups, you have to wonder if that's a factor.
Another thing is the body armour the players wear. When you're hit by an elbow pad, there is no "padding"to speak of...it's hard, thick plastic you're getting crunched with. Perhaps the material on the equipment needs to be changed.
Whatever the reason is, status quo isn't helping. It needs to be studied and addressed so the players ultimately don't have a shortened career because of it.
# posted by SBP : 7:41 PM
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SBP,
Ovechkin is not out because of a head shot though is he? Neither are most of the guys on your list are they? I know Toews is but I think most of the other guys have shoulder/groin issues.
These guys are not working on the parts of their bodies when they train for 12 hours a day in the summer. Therefore, the weaker parts of their bodies give out easily when put through the paces of an NHL season. I firmly believe that this is why we see so many groin issues today.
While I don't entirely disagree with your assessment of head shots, I'm not sure I understand how your point gets made by a bunch of guys out due to shoulder/groin injuries. Maybe their shoulder pads aren't hard enough?
Head shots do need to go for sure and I believe that equipment is an issue.
Fighting is down in the league since the early 00s (instigator rule). Perhaps that is the reason we are seeing more this in the game. Not only is there no punishment from the league for a head shot, there is also no on-ice punishment for them.
Sooner or later, one of those two conditions has to break. Hopefully it's the league taking a better stand on head shots but I would not hold your breath.
I'm not sure that you've heard but the NFL commissioner was in congress last week dancing around head shots and long term effects for players and ex-players. This is a real money issue and if the ultra-rich NFL won't address it, bet your bottom dollar that the cash strapped NHL won't either.
If the NHL acknowledges that head shots are bad and should be penalized, they open themselves up to lawsuits from all kinds of concussed former players who are now sick with post-concussion issues.
I know you don't like fighting in the league but to me it's a small price to pay for a reduction in head shots and some star players missing time in the league.
The kicker in all of this is that the players union would have to defend the actions of anyone suspended for a head shot on another one of their members. That is why the NHLPA is helpless to resolve this issue and why you see many players passing the buck when asked about eliminating the violence in hockey.
All of this to say that I agree with your point on head shots but the issue is much larger and deeper than most people imagine it is and the solution to the problem may be just an displeasing as the problem itself.
RBP
Ovechkin is not out because of a head shot though is he? Neither are most of the guys on your list are they? I know Toews is but I think most of the other guys have shoulder/groin issues.
These guys are not working on the parts of their bodies when they train for 12 hours a day in the summer. Therefore, the weaker parts of their bodies give out easily when put through the paces of an NHL season. I firmly believe that this is why we see so many groin issues today.
While I don't entirely disagree with your assessment of head shots, I'm not sure I understand how your point gets made by a bunch of guys out due to shoulder/groin injuries. Maybe their shoulder pads aren't hard enough?
Head shots do need to go for sure and I believe that equipment is an issue.
Fighting is down in the league since the early 00s (instigator rule). Perhaps that is the reason we are seeing more this in the game. Not only is there no punishment from the league for a head shot, there is also no on-ice punishment for them.
Sooner or later, one of those two conditions has to break. Hopefully it's the league taking a better stand on head shots but I would not hold your breath.
I'm not sure that you've heard but the NFL commissioner was in congress last week dancing around head shots and long term effects for players and ex-players. This is a real money issue and if the ultra-rich NFL won't address it, bet your bottom dollar that the cash strapped NHL won't either.
If the NHL acknowledges that head shots are bad and should be penalized, they open themselves up to lawsuits from all kinds of concussed former players who are now sick with post-concussion issues.
I know you don't like fighting in the league but to me it's a small price to pay for a reduction in head shots and some star players missing time in the league.
The kicker in all of this is that the players union would have to defend the actions of anyone suspended for a head shot on another one of their members. That is why the NHLPA is helpless to resolve this issue and why you see many players passing the buck when asked about eliminating the violence in hockey.
All of this to say that I agree with your point on head shots but the issue is much larger and deeper than most people imagine it is and the solution to the problem may be just an displeasing as the problem itself.
RBP
# posted by 
: 8:07 AM, November 04, 2009
: 8:07 AM, November 04, 2009
I guess I sort of mixed the head shots with the general injury bug that's going on, so yeah, I know Mr. Ovechkin isn't concussed (although they always say "upper body" so you never know what the actual injury is sometimes).
The NHL, and the NFL for that matter, probably do risk a lawsuit if they admit concussions are a problem that are causing the former players to live a less than normal life. It is unfortunate, because I believe if they set up an injury pension fund to address this, I'm sure the players would have been happy with it, but if they've been in denial for all these years, the ramifications on their bottom line is much greater.
That's the thing...the money prevents the right thing from being done. These billionaire owners can still take care of the players and own that sixth house in Barabados, but greed trumps all. It is indeed a mess.
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The NHL, and the NFL for that matter, probably do risk a lawsuit if they admit concussions are a problem that are causing the former players to live a less than normal life. It is unfortunate, because I believe if they set up an injury pension fund to address this, I'm sure the players would have been happy with it, but if they've been in denial for all these years, the ramifications on their bottom line is much greater.
That's the thing...the money prevents the right thing from being done. These billionaire owners can still take care of the players and own that sixth house in Barabados, but greed trumps all. It is indeed a mess.
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