Player safety: bull by the horns, or just bull....

international sized rinks…its been proven that there are less concussions and similar type hits in the euro leagues but the old canadian stooges that run the league still drop a wad any the very thought of mentioning the words “european” or “change”

Number two reason is you’d be digging the puck out of the pillows every 2 minutes.

Remove the first one or two rows of seats around the entire rink. Get rid of the idiotic “between the benches phone-booth” and make Pierre McGuire sit in the press box like every other journalist – or let him stand in the Zamboni gate.

Better yet db, move Pierre McGuire under a big, heavy boulder that we don’t check under for a year or three. He can live off of bugs, moss, and his own urine (I’ve seen Bear Grylls drink his own to survive) for awhile.

My serious take on the issue:

What I would like to see is more people embracing the Messier Project, fans not kidding themselves with the thought that concussions can be removed completely, and above all for players to respect one another and avoid dangerous plays. I hear the phrase a lot in the hockey world, “where has the respect gone for fellow players?” I am not sure if there is less (or more) of it than there was ten or twenty years ago but there is no denying that the game is faster, the players are bigger and stronger, and the impacts that occur are all the more violent because of it.

We will never see professional ice hockey without concussions, it is a viciously fast contact sport played on a thin layer of artificial ice covered in concrete encased in metal, plastic, and plexiglass.

Those are my two cents. Hope you guys take a minute to read them.

I believe that Chara should have gotten a suspension because he intentionally guided Pacioretty into that stanchion. Did he mean to break the guy’s fourth cervical vertibrae? I don’t think so. But the intent to smash him into a large immovable object was unmistakeable.

If the NHL would just punish these people accordingly, then there wouldn’t be a problem. Chara is not a dirty player, so this would be one ten game suspension and that’s it.

We can count on one hand the amount of players in this league who are so dangerous and disrespectful that they should be removed. They are the only problems.

The rest of the concussions incurred are a result of twelve 200+ lb men skating 15-20 mph over a surface as hard as concrete surrounded by walls equally as unforgiving, trying in many cases to hit each other. Its part of the game and if they continue to punish the Matt Cooke-type guy who throws sneaky elbows into guys’ faces and destroys their career, they’ll be okay.

I actually like this. Study it and find out more info. They will make changes before next season. They’re going to fix the equipment problem and they’re definitely going to remove the stanchions(not every arena has them)..

Look, concussion problems are 10 million times worse in the NFL/Football and they don’t care. They do nothing about it. Fact is most NFL/football players die before the age of 60(average lie for a football player is 55) because of head injuries/problems caused from all the head contact. Hockey players have a normal life expectancy. The NHL is at least trying to do something about it.

1) The new equipment is a huge problem(it really is). Fix that. (1 of the 5 steps)
2) Remove the stanchions(they are useless). (Definitely going to happen)
3) Get rid of assholes like Cooke and Gillies who don’t care about their peers. They’re useless anyway.
4) Come up with a fair rule and fair suspension policy. Players will know that they’re going to get suspended and they’ll know exactly what will get them suspended. Make it like the steroid policy in the crappy sport of baseball. Where the suspension automatically gets worse for each offense. No question about it. Have a set amount of games for suspensions for each offense. This would be a huge help for stopping all this goonery(?)..

IMO, there are two sides to what Messier suggested; first the players need to respect each other, something Messier didn’t exactly do many times in his career, but second, players need to understand how to protect themselves. I do not mean fighting, I mean players have to understand how NOT to put themselves in potentially dangerous places or positions during the course of the game. One of the things that stands out to me between our current game and the ’70’s ’80’s game is players use the rules and boards to “shield the puck” from opposing forecheckers or defenseman. The opposing player is left will little choice; either he takes the body (and potential boarding penatly), or backs off and gives up pressing for the puck. Neither exactly good for the game. Jagr did this best, but he was big and strong enough to absorb the hit and maintain control of the puck. Many players now don’t have that physical ability or skill, putting them in rather precarious positions to get creamed. This tells me players today are employing the construct of the rules with a disregard for their safety, in order to obtain a competative advantage. This also encourages play along the boards, slowing the game. So here’s my suggestion – penalize the puck posession player for turning his back on an opposing player while standing 4-5 feet away from the boards. Do this by painting a line around the rink 4-5 feet away from the boards, and penalize a player for turning his back on an opposing player within that region. Either make the penatly 2 mins or just a faceoff outside the zone, but get the players to play out of that dangerous area. There is more to look at here, and I know this solution isn’t the burning bush, but I think it needs to be looked at.