Visors or Carelessness
I have been playing hockey for 11 years, 9 of them being at the competitive/rep. level and have seen first hand the dangers involved in the sport. Kids getting hit from behind, getting slashed, speared, poked etc. but there is one injury you will never see at the minor level and that is one of a facial injury, more specifically an eye injury. The reason you won’t see this kind of injury is because we are forced to wear full facial protection, which protect our faces in their entirety. In the NHL it’s different. The players are not required to wear any protection on their face at all. Only after Brian Berard lost complete vision in his right eye did the league even think of changing this rule. Now, because of this incident and a couple more that are similar, but not as severe, the league, when discussions for a new collective bargaining agreement occur, is going to try to mandate players to wear a protective visor as part of their safety equipment. This is ridiculous for three reasons, the first being that these players are fully grown men and are quite capable of deciding whether or not they feel a visor is necessary. Second, mandating visors will only add to the already growing negative aspect to the game. And third, even if
Some say that mandating visors will prevent many unnecessary injuries. But it would also be safer if players didn’t take running starts at opponents or leave their feet to deliver hits. It’d be safer if they didn’t lead with elbows to the head. It’d be safer if the officials officiated consistently and handled dirty players appropriately. It’d be safer if we removed hitting from the game completely or even made the players play with their feet instead of a dangerous stick. It’d be safer if the league did a lot of things, but this does not mean that they are going to do them. The point is that injuries are part of hockey, they are going to happen no matter what rule you put in place, no matter how much equipment you wear, they will happen. Why would you upset so many players, and disrupt their playing style by forcing them to wear an unwanted and unneeded piece of equipment? To mandate visors is to tell the players that we don’t care about your opinion, we up in the office, who don’t even play, know more about your safety then you do. It is absolutely ludicrous. the rule was established it would not be effective in the slightest form and then therefore not worth the effort. Although most visors are made to withstand a blow traveling up to 90 miles an hour they are not as effective as most people would think. Being a visor, it only covers half of the players face, leaving the bottom half exposed to anything that might fly its way. Not only is the bottom half exposed but if a stick or puck were to fly upward towards the player’s face the visor would be useless as there is nothing stopping the object from going up and under the visor. It is only rare that a blow would come downward as the puck and sticks are all on the ice to begin with. Even if wearing visors was mandated, would the players even wear them properly? If you look at the OHL, a league in which you must
Some topics in this essay:
Don Cherry,
Brian Berard,
,
wearing visor,
it’d safer,
Boston Bruins,
players wear,
mandating visors,
wear visor,
wear visors,
bottom half exposed,
bottom half,
peripheral vision,
half exposed,
negative aspect,
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Approximate Word count = 1279
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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