Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheerio
So they're putting off hitting until bantam where the size difference is bigger and the players are faster? They need to focus on teaching players how to safely take and give a hit so there aren't kids skating with their head down 2 feet away from the boards.
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Yes, that may be true but if hitting is allowed you also have coaches training how to hit and telling kids to hit. Hitting is a skill.
From my perspective, as parent and as someone who played minor hockey for many years in the pre-mask era the giving and receiving of hits can be learned when you get older. On the other hand puck skills and to a certain extent skating skills are better to learn when the players are very young.
That does not mean that a player does not need to learn how to protect himself from day one as there are other ways to deliver violence in hockey. Certainly, as Messier once said its similar to Boxing in the sense that "you need to protect yourself at all times".