Body-checking.
Hockey traditionalists insist the skill helps define the game. It’s what makes hockey exciting to play and watch, while topping up the tool kit required to construct a complete player.
But traditions are changing, as parents and amateur leagues recognize the game can be played with less risk of grievous injury – most notably, concussions – and still appeal to players and fans.
Hockey Alberta struck body-checking from the peewee ranks this season, removing high-impact play to reduce the injury threat for 11- 12-year-old players.
Having checked into a couple of elite-level, no-contact games so far this season, I’m happy to report the game is as compelling as ever. And not one dazed, rumpled kid was helped off the ice in those contests for being slammed with a high-impact free shot. You know the ones – the open-ice jolts where one player catches another with his head down and skates through him. Or the sprint into the corner where the contact recipient is stapled to the boards at full speed.
The Bow Valley Timberwolves are 4-1 in South Central Alberta Hockey League peewee AA play so far this season, skating their blades off to get there. Team Alberta’s U18 girls team is also winning this track meet on ice, defeating the Rocky Mountain Raiders AAA bantam boys 3-2 Oct. 13 in a tuneup for the national championship beginning Nov. 6 in Calgary. (Body-checking is also embargoed in female amateur hockey.)
The kids, parents, coaches and fans appear not to be suffering. It’s textbook hockey minus the blood-curdling thump and someone wilting in a heap. And, for those anticipating withdrawal watching amateur hockey without body-checking, there is contact. You still get the physical one-one-one battles along the boards and in the corners as players muscle for puck possession. And the fight for space around the net is as robust as ever.
So where does elite peewee hockey go from here?
“It doesn’t slow the game or make it an awful game to watch,” peewee Timberwolves head coach Gerald Bouchard observes. “It does change the game a little bit. It changes the type of players who are playing. I think a lot of kids, if there was body contact – there would be some kids who may not be on the team. And vice-versa.”
Reading between the lines (it’s why columnists get the big bucks), Bouchard is essentially suggesting the player whose main skill is delivering hits will now have to work harder on other skills or wait for bantam tryouts, the amateur level after peewee where body-checking is encouraged.
Remember, these are 11- 12-year-old kids we’re talking about. When they get older, they will learn body-checking skills and play the traditional, full-contact game. Some will even advance to the pro ranks where they can body-check their brains out for a paycheque.
But on a Saturday morning at the local rink, it’s reassuring to know young skaters aren’t exposed to the risk of high-impact injury as they’d be in “traditional” hockey.
There will be plenty of time to hit, and get hit, down the road.
