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National League Hockey is one of Americas favorite sports. People from not only the US, but also boarding countries across the world find hockey to be a sport to be a daily pleasure to watch. Going to see your favorite team in action, as well as seeing your favorite players skate around the ice is a treasure to hockey fans. However an injury on the ice could not only sadden the fans, but also hurt the player enough that they are out of the game for weeks, or even forever. 

A Hockey player tends to spend their whole adolescent life playing hockey and preparing for the National League teams. During the Junior League players are required to wear full covering helmets. In their study, “The Avoidability of Head and Neck Injuries,” Biasca and others declare that helmets with face guards help to prevent facial fractures during the game. When they move up to the big league the helmets get a little different, it is only covering their head and their eyes. This causes more facial features during the game when a collision happens on the ice. 73.5 out of 1000 players contracted a facial injury during a game wearing an NHL regulated helmet. However only 16 out of 1000 players received a facial injury due to the fact that they were wearing a fully covering helmet.

The number of minor brain traumas, as well as concussions has risen over the years and will continue to rise. Even though the NHL has added more penalties such as checking from behind, and head checking it has still not done enough to bring down the number of injuries down significantly enough. This poses the question of whether the NHL is really doing enough regulation to protect the players from injury causing them to be taken out of the game for a short period, or the rest of their career.

Chances are when you go to a hockey game a fight will break out at some point. Hockey is known to have a stronger masculinity dominance surrounding it. This in a way causes more fights in order to prove who is more masculine. The NHL only allows fights on the ice, the Olympics, as well as international teams do not regulate fighting on the ice. It has also been shown that fights on the ice do not attract more fans to the stadiums, or encourage them more to watch the game on the television.

The bottom line is that by the NHL not taking more precautionary measures, and regulating fights on the ice it is causing more injuries than any other sport. If we added more protective gear, and followed the same rules as the Olympics and International teams we would have a safer game. Taking away fights on the ice, and adding more protective gear takes nothing away from the enjoyability of the game. Instead it creates a safer game for the players.

References

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0887302×07303626 | … (n.d.). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328039672_httpjournalssagepubcomdoiabs1011770887302X07303626 

Biasca, N., Wirth, S., & Tegner, Y. (2002, December 1). The avoidability of head and neck injuries in Ice Hockey: An historical review. British Journal of Sports Medicine. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/36/6/410.short 

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/36/6/410.short

Tandfonline. (n.d.-b). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01596306.2022.2033534