Body checking in minor hockey needs to be curbed

  To body check. Or not.

Hockey Canada voted Saturday to eliminate body checking until players reach bantam, at aged 13, and it has sparked much debate.

Don Cherry threw his two cents in recently on Coach’s Corner and, not surprisingly, he isn’t a fan. Cherry thinks Hockey Canada is heading down the wrong path. His partner in crime, Ron MacLean, asked an interesting question: should there be two leagues — one for body checking and the other without.

Cherry’s response: “House league is perfect.”

I think Hockey Canada has made the right decision and has a vision for the future of the sport in Canada. Our country and our world isn’t getting any smaller. Unless the National Hockey League expands — and, I certainly don’t see that — the number of kids making the NHL will remain the same: a very small per centage. And that very small number needs to learn the mechanics of body checking. Absolutely.

But for the mass majority — an increasing number— they could very well be interested in playing non-contact recreation hockey — without hitting. And we should be able to have programs in place for hockey in a safe environment. So is learning to hit really that important?

The game has changed. And we need to move with those changes.

Because the most important question on the way home from the rink shouldn’t be whether you won or lost. Rather, are you OK?

Talk to Tait  @camtait on Twitter   Email camtait@telus.net

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Talk to Tait  @camtait on Twitter   Email camtait@telus.net

Please give your feedback by clicking a box on the bottom

Coming to the Tait Talk blog Monday afternoon ....

The body checking debate in minor hockey

May 27 - Cam 'n Eggs — Tait@nait

  

The doors to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology will open countless times today just off Kingsway Avenue in Edmonton at the main campus. Students in pursuit of careers will be going through those doors. They may not realize now, but, later, they could very well reflect on their time at NAIT as some of the best times of their lives.

I make these comments, celebrating 50 years ago today since NAIT's doors first opened. Personally, NAIT was one of the best years of my life.

I was a student of the Radio and Television Arts program in 1977. My dream: to write for radio first perhaps, writing commercials, and then, maybe, documentaries. Yet, NAIT gave me an education I never thought of — how to build and maintain relationships with people. The Glenrose School Hospital was my junior high and high school because I have cerebral palsy and use a wheelchair. I found myself in a culture shock my first few months of NAIT. Clearly, I was a minority. Yet, my fellow classmates slowly helped me become one of the gang.

They showed me the value of humor to bridge gaps and so many things not on the curriculum. NAIT gave me lifetime friendships with people I still am in contact with today: Gary Chomyn, Lance Brown and Pat Petersen, to name a few. I would not be the person I am without going through the doors of NAIT.

May they swing mightily for the next 50 years.

Happy Birthday!

Tait Text   Twitter @camtait  Email camtait@telus.net