Head Shots or Clean Hits: This Is a Fine Line

The new topic of the NHL in the last few months or so is HEAD SHOTS. In all honesty, there is only one reason why this is becoming a big issue. That reason is softness. Everyone around the NHL is becoming too soft. I do agree that players taking aim at other players' heads with elbow and cross checks go too far, but when we are questioning shoulder hits to the upper body, it is going too far. It starts with the head now, then it will be the chest, then there will not be hitting at all in the NHL and it will be as boring as women's hockey.

Let' start with the Mike Richards hit to David Booth. It was a clean hit. You are taught as young kids never to admire your pass or shot because there is always someone around to take you out. Booth admired it and got crunched in the " trolley tracks". This was a hit 30 years ago that would have been played over and over on Sports Centre and talked about for days because of the hard impact. It is not dirty or a head shot. Yes, Booth missed three months of play for the Florida Panthers, but it was CLEAN, nothing wrong.

The Matt Cooke hit on Marc Savard of the Boston Bruins was another clean hit. Shoulder to head. Nothing illegal about it, no elbow and no jumping motion. Actually, the time of impact and the puck release from Savard's stick was almost exact timing. In my books, it was clean, clean, clean.

Here is the solution to this pandemic: EQUIPMENT change. Don Cherry has been talking about this for a decade now. Get rid of the hard plastic that is on elbow pads and shoulder pads. Let's go back to the shoulder pads that were all PAD. Sher-Wood still makes the shoulder pads that everyone should be wearing. It actually should be a rule in the NHL that all players wear these shoulder pads. Players today are bigger, stronger, and faster then they were 30 years ago. So adding hard plastic to equipment that when used for impact acts as a harder surface, it is no wonder why there are more Concussion and head injuries today.

One other suggestion to this situation: The game and NHL in general should put people in charge who have played the game. Gary Bettman should be fired. No offence to American readers, but right now only CANADIANS should be running this league. Hence more teams in Canada. Sorry guys, but y'all don't care about hockey.