Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
the deathknell of hockey will be the same one afflicting football right now:
Parents not enrolling their kids because the sport is too dangerous.
|
So take hitting out of lower levels. No kid NEEDS to blow up another kid during a Trails West 3 v Symons Valley 4 game on a Wednesday in November.
Royals/Canucks/Bisons, Division 1 hockey, fine. Allow hitting and call hits to the head. There's no PA in minor hockey, it's not like there's going to be fierce opposition.
Football is now moving to 7v7 flag leagues. Parents aren't going to stop letting kids play hockey if there's a reasonable level of risk.
The biggest issue, to me, is letting kids continue to play after they've already sustained a concussion. I was a goalie for ten years and my worst injuries were pucks to the knees. Things that hurt but didn't impact my ability to walk to school in the morning.
I played with a kid who had suffered at least five concussions before he was 16. That's crackers. That kid shouldn't have been playing hockey. I don't have kids - when I do, they are going to know going in that their contact hockey career is done after their first concussion. They will have signed a contract with me agreeing to as much.
If these sports truly 'die', it will be because of legal verdicts so enormous that they cripple a league's ability to function.