Recently, I have been thinking that total head protection could be better designed than the current helmet. What about a full face/neck shield device. Obviously it would require much superior engineering than what is currently available on the market, but driven by the wealth of the NHL i am sure something could be developed. You could incentivize player and club adoption by allowing small AR advances to be displayed heads up inside the helmet: period time, pp/pk scoreclock, potentially a microphone system with the coach. You could even make adoption optional, but teams/players adopting could potentially start to develop a small advantage on ice. But also, overall safety would be greatly improved if you could design something that would protect the entire face, back of head, and neck while allowing for visibility, air flow, and unrestricted motion. It can't be beyond our abilities to design this. Like a space helmet but no where near as bulbous.
It would could even offer a total advancement of the sport. I have previously proposed other futurist oriented changes to hockey, namely replacing all on ice reffing with off ice panels aided by drones and cameras. I'm sorry this is a bit of a tangent but I have been thinking about it a lot lately and this event is so tragic and has me thinking of it again.
Just implement cages as a requirement now. Grandfather in the people currently playing without them. In 20 years the entire NHL won't know what it was like playing with a visor
Just implement cages as a requirement now. Grandfather in the people currently playing without them. In 20 years the entire NHL won't know what it was like playing with a visor
While it’s probably not the right time, it’s about marketability more than anything. Faces oddly mean something to put two and two together. Players seem to be against it more than anything so I’m indifferent.
As for this player, that’s pretty sad. It looked innocent enough that you wouldn’t think that would happen. Must be rough for the player who shot the puck too.
Sad to see a young guy lose his life for a fairly routine looking play.
As others have said, protecting the neck is difficult. The neck protectors at the minor hockey levels are designed to protect a player from skate cuts but are not the best design for a high velocity impact to the side of the neck. They still may have been effective in this case though.
With neck sizes and lengths varying so much you would almost need to tailor fit something to each player in order to protect from this incident or use a helmet design from a spartan warrior or something that completely breaks convention.
Even though they might not have prevented this, start implementing cages in junior leagues (similar to the way fighting is eventually being phased out) so it makes it easier when the players come to the majors. Player safety should be paramount.
Recently, I have been thinking that total head protection could be better designed than the current helmet. What about a full face/neck shield device. Obviously it would require much superior engineering than what is currently available on the market, but driven by the wealth of the NHL i am sure something could be developed. You could incentivize player and club adoption by allowing small AR advances to be displayed heads up inside the helmet: period time, pp/pk scoreclock, potentially a microphone system with the coach. You could even make adoption optional, but teams/players adopting could potentially start to develop a small advantage on ice. But also, overall safety would be greatly improved if you could design something that would protect the entire face, back of head, and neck while allowing for visibility, air flow, and unrestricted motion. It can't be beyond our abilities to design this. Like a space helmet but no where near as bulbous.
It would could even offer a total advancement of the sport. I have previously proposed other futurist oriented changes to hockey, namely replacing all on ice reffing with off ice panels aided by drones and cameras. I'm sorry this is a bit of a tangent but I have been thinking about it a lot lately and this event is so tragic and has me thinking of it again.
The problem with equipment and rule changes is that they are only good if the players actually play with them. Look at Monahan and his visor tilt and every team in the league seemingly has a player who does this.
Also I think the vast majority of your ideas sound more distracting that beneficial and would reduce visibility on the ice.
I don't think that you could replace referees/linesmen as they are active participants in the game and serve as much to break up fights and interact with the play. While I see a benefit to using cameras to make calls, I also think that having a referee on the ice to make judgments makes a lot of sense as well.
Here's is a thorough explanation by a sports doctor on the medical side of how something like this could have happened. He also touches on full cages, and other ways to improve protective gear so that injuries and incidents like this are reduced.
Super tragic to see happen to someone so young. I feel really bad for the player who accidentally hit him, can't even imagine what he is going through. Rest in peace Timur, and thoughts are with the family, and team.
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Last edited by Mattman; 03-16-2021 at 03:28 PM.
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