Why not allow charging and back checking? Kid's got to learn that some people play dirty, right? Saying that there is a legitimate lesson is not the same as saying the means of teaching it are justified. So, I'm wondering what makes body checking an 11 year and acceptable method of conveying the lesson, but punching him in the back of the head does not. Is it just that one has been traditionally allowed in the rules of hockey and the other has traditionally been a felony?
Because there's a difference between checking and dropping a right cross to the back of some kid's skull. Checking is tactical, used for a variety of reasons, and can be defended against properly. Checking someone from behind is fuckin' bullshit, and that's why it's an illegal move. Charging is more of the same. As for the lesson, how else would you teach it within the confines of team hockey? Yeah, it's a little risky, but so is letting your kid walk to school for the first time, but he's gotta learn that too. My question is where is the line drawn on what methods can be used to teach a child important life lessons?
What fucking hockey game do you watch with punches to the back of the head that go unpunished? Hockey players have faced criminal charges for reckless paly (Mcsorley, Granato, Bertuzzi's faggot ass). Backchecking isn't a penalty, maybe you're thinking of checking from behind, but those you mentioned are two of the more serious offenses, and have game dqs, some even further suspensions. Are you saying other sports don't have dirty players? In hockey's case, it is a fundamental aspect of the sport. Someone else made the analogy of not allowing to hit in peewee football, it just doesn't make sense without it. When I was a squirt/atom we would all practice checking each other in preparation for the next step, peewees. It's not that hitting is so cool (it is), but that it's a completely new part of the game to conquer. All the kids who were Donny Dangles didn't have the competitive edge anymore when they could get flattened. My coaches didn't teach us to freight-train kids, but rather how to use your body to gain a physical edge, whether it be keeping yourself between the puck and and the opposing player or by checking properly and pinning the guy against the boards. Those huge open ice concussion-inducing hits are rare, and for the most part can be avoided if said concussed kid had his head up and was aware of his surroundings. Without proper introduction to physical play early, the players won't be as skilled at checking and sticks will fly and hands will be high, and at an age where you can do more damage. Using the football anaology again, it would be a lot scarier if kids learned how to hit at 15, having grown considerably and being awkward due to puberty and whatnot, just started hurling themselves at each other. I was small in peewees and bantoms, bottom 2 or 3 in height every year, and in highly competitive leagues. Like 5'1" in my second year at Bantom AAA. I learned how to keep a low center of gravity, and was nearly impossible to be knocked down, largely in thanks to preparation. Bottom line, there are in-house non-check leagues at just about all local ice rinks, for pussies or for kids whose parents are pussies. If they want to play competitively, they need to learn physical play, early, so they know how to protect themselves, and so they know it's competitive and run the risk of being Lindrossed.
I've been playing hockey since I could skate and in that time I seen a lot of accidents, bad hits, good hits, and injuries. These people are trying to take a small element of danger out of the game. But what they don't realize is that most of the catastrophic injuries happen purely by accident and unfortunately shit luck. Take a boarding that results in the injury. The person who is boarded is maybe a couple feet of the boards and the person who hits him is likely from behind. The motive in this situation is almost never to injure a person but to more likely give them a little shot in the back. But because of spacing and bad luck the person gets injured. In no check leagues these plays happen all the time because hockey it its nature is a physical sport. Taking out checking won't likely decrease contact all that much. Saying this, I am a proponent of keeping the checking age the way it currently is. At PeeWee's players are starting to mature more physically and can handle the increased rigor of the contact and new techniques. Done right checking is a safe play. Some people seem to assume that checking leads to more dirty plays and dangerous situations. That is incorrect. I reffed and supervised intramural hockey at my university and it was a no check league. Did the no check rule decrease injuries? No not really. No matter what the plays that players tend to get injured on are either accidental or illegal. It also seems some people think that allowing checking leads to an aggresive mentality where players can get into a situation where they attempt to make a legal hit and end up making an illegal one and injuring someone. This is silly. The practice of checking does not lead to an increased level of aggression. The person's own makeup decides this. Allowing preteens to hit each other does not turn them into some violent animals. Ultimately there is risk involved with this game and people must be willing to accept the game to play it. And I remember one measure parents took while I was a youth to clean up the game. They put a little stop sign on the back of the jerseys between the shoulder blades. This was to prevent hitting from behind (which is ultimately the most dangerous play in the game). It was silly, stupid, and didn't work. Over protective parents are divisive and toxic and can often ruin a fun game for the kids. This reminds me that often players love the game but in many cases the parents get over-involved and ruin it for the players.
I think you missed the question. If allowing hits to young kids in hockey is okay for the reason that they have to learn that life isn't always safe and clean, why is it not okay to teach the exact same lesson in another way, such as punching a kid in the back of the head (outside of hockey). Is this rough activity an okay teaching tool, but this other rough activity is not because of nothing more than tradition? "It is a fundamental aspect of the sport." Yeah, well, punching a kid in the back of the head is a fundamental part of playing Punch Kids in the Back of the Head, but I think most people would agree it's a pretty shitty game and not a legitimate way to teaching children life lessons.
Wow, your analogy could not be more wrong in so many ways. 1. The level of violence between hitting someone in the back of the head and checking a player are in no way comparable. 2. Checking is a technique used in a game, the above is not. 3. There is a level of anger and aggression involved in the above, hitting is a technique used in a game, much like boxing a player out of a rebound in basketball. 4. In your example there is no one mediating the activity. While skating there are referee's and coaches maintaing a safe environment. So, swing and a miss on your part.
If you're going to claim that players do not use anger and aggression in the physical parts of basketball, you've clearly never played a lot of basketball. You watch your back any time you're on the court. Someone gets a bit loose w/ the elbows, you let them know. I can only assume the same holds for hockey.
I've played ice and inline since I was 4. There are no real important life lessons learned in checking or hockey (other than work hard, team before the individual, blah blah blah). The earlier you introduce kids to checking, the earlier they learn to KEEP THEIR HEADS UP. You can not play with your head down in ice hockey. It doesn't take long to learn how to give and take a hit. However, if you were to ban checking before a certain age, I would make the kids play with blinders on so they can't look down at the puck. Number One rule of hockey is KEEP YOUR HEAD UP (and know who is on the ice). If you teach kids how to hit and take a hit properly, very few injuries will occur. The earlier the better.
You're right about the basketball part. I've never played much, never been really good at it. My game is hockey and I play it well. My point is though that technique can be used without aggression. They two aren't synonymous.
Never a good idea to argue with a lawyer, I know, but I think you are missing the point of learning to check. It's not to hand out life lessons abouty safety and cleanliness. Those values are important, but that's not what checking is about. It's about playing the sport. As an added bonus, kids toughen up. I can understand disliking the sport and it's violent nature, and if that's the case don't play. If you are worried about ways to teach kids how the world isn't always safe and clean, tell them to go outside. That should do it. Should children not ride bikes because some of them break their arms flying over the handlebars? Should we all just stay inside and wear bubblewrap? If the kid enjoys hockey enough to play competitively, he knows, and hopefully his parents do as well, that hockey can be dangerous.
Not sure I totally get what you mean, but basically...yes. And I don't mean that to have anything to do with keeping 'tradition' in the sense I think you're implying, I mean that, however long ago, adults made the rules for youth hockey. They decided that for the first 5 or 6 years, kids shouldn't be worried about the physical part of the game. When they reach a certain age, they're allowed to skate into the puck carrier and run their shoulder into his/her shoulder or chest, so long as they aren't striding and don't jump when contact is made. Punching and 'back checking' isn't allowed, ever, at any age, which is why youth coaches don't teach how to take a punch/it from behind (except Graham James...zing!). Is body checking as I described it still dangerous? Of course. But so is skating fast and falling into the boards, which is why they teach that first, knowing full well that it won't stop all players from falling awkwardly, from non-hitting related plays. And it's not like this is some secret; hockey is advertised as a rough sport to every kid who watches the NHL. Some like the physical aspect, some shy away. To compensate, non-hitting/rec leagues have been created, giving them the option to enjoy the parts of the game they like. Getting the hitting leagues to bump the age up, when non-hitting leagues already exist, seems like unncessary meddling in something that isn't broken, and if anything, will cause problems for the older, bigger players, when they finally are allowed to hit. Not sure how life lessons got into this. I thought we were talking about a game with certain rules, and some people want to change them. But even still, doesn't the fact that clean checks are permitted and punching in the back of the head is punished teach kids that: fair, consentual rough housing, as a relatively small part of life, is fine, but going too far and causing pain intentionally will land you in jail? Again, I don't think it's being done just because it's always been done. I think it's being done because it's carefully monitored and it works, today, right now, in this day and age. Also, leagues exist for those who don't think it works. Well now you're just making shit up, but that sounds hilarious. At what age are youth in PKITBOTH taught how to take a punch? Is this the only skill they learn? I think the age at which they turn their heads should be raised so that the punches are harder and more reckless. What's sad is the National Punch Kids in the Back of the Head League would still bring in better U.S. ratings than the NHL.
Well, it's not that I'm missing the point; I'm respond to what someone else against the ban said the point was, which is to learn that life isn't all daffodils and hovering mommies. But, if your argument is that getting rid of checking means you're not really playing hockey, then I have to ask, who the fuck cares? What makes that specific set of rules important? As cultures change of generations, why can't those cultures play sports however they want to?
Hockey is a contact sport, period. Granted little kids shouldn't be running each other when they can barely balance on their skates, but if you don't have the sand to play it then go hit the soccer field. It's insulting to think anybody would want to change the rules, they've been fucked with enough with faggy shootouts and more space behind the net. Fighting and checking are a part of this game and always will be. Do you actually think this is a dangerous sport? What is your damage? Have you ever played Rugby? I have. It's WAAAAAY rougher. No padding, my friends. Lacrosse? Like hockey only no leg protection and you can decapitate people as much as you want, as hard as you want. Austrailian football? Those lunatics are carved out of oak and it's the most savage mainstream sport there is. Jai Lai? 150 mph ball shots. Think about that and then tell me that hockey is too rough. Pussy. Stop fucking with my fucking game, or I'm dropping the gloves.
Sorry if I misunderstood your argument; you're right, it's not an appropriate channel for lessons on daffodils and such. Incidentally, as Crown pointed out, they have made changes to the league with the times, albeit detrimental in my opinion. What you're asking is more along the lines of no more dribbling the ball in basketball, or hitting off a tee in baseball. That's just not the same sport. There are no-check leagues, for children and adults, but these kids getting injured are trying to pursue a competitive hockey career, in which physical play is a necessity.