AUTUMN McDOWELL — The Carillon (University of Regina)

Despite Saskatchewan’s opposition to the ban, players under 13 will no longer be allowed to bodycheck.

REGINA (CUP) — According to many hockey fans, bodychecking is simply part of the game.

But with an increase in the number of high profile concussion cases in hockey leagues across the country, Hockey Canada, the governing body of Canadian ice hockey, has made the controversial decision to take bodychecking out of peewee hockey.

While the majority of provinces have overwhelmingly supported this rule change, Saskatchewan was the only province to vote against the ban. Rather, the province believes that bodychecking should be implemented early in a player’s hockey career.

While Saskatchewan was the only province to vote against the ban, it is also the only province that requires coaches to take a mandatory bodychecking course. If more provinces made this training a requirement, executive director of Hockey Regina Blair Watson believes the vote may have been different.

“Saskatchewan is actually ahead of the curve. This bodychecking course has been mandatory in Saskatchewan for a number of years for our coaches coaching in novice all the way up to midget,” said Watson. “At least one member of the coaching staff has to take the checking clinic.”

While the decision was made largely with the concern for player’s health and safety in mind, according to Sarah Hodges, the University of Regina Cougars women’s hockey head coach, eliminating bodychecking will not eliminate injuries.

“I don’t think it will do anything to make the game safer,” Hodges said. “We have concussions and injuries in our games because players move fast and collisions will always happen. Many other injuries come as a result of illegal hits.”

Although many fans believe that the decision will cause negative effects to the game’s excitement, there may be some positives to the checking ban.

Rob Nestor, a professor at the University of Regina who recently taught a class on the sociology of hockey in Canada, is admittedly torn on the topic. After having his own children pass through the peewee hockey system in Saskatchewan, Nestor can see both sides of the argument.

“On the one hand, the elimination of hitting from peewee means that kids may play the game longer as some kids were dropping out at that age for fear of injury. I live in a small town and we are often faced with dwindling numbers by peewee age as many girls cease to play on boys teams once hitting begins,” he said.

“The result of this is that we often then have to combine with other towns in order to have enough players for a team, which means additional travel and therefore additional costs. With the elimination of hitting from pee wee, it is likely that more girls will continue to play the game for two more years.”

However, like many other parents’ concerns similar to the ones stated by Watson, Nestor feels that waiting until bantam age to begin hitting could be more dangerous due to the sometimes-extreme size differences between players.

“In my opinion I think hitting should begin at the novice age and be taught just like any other skill,” Nestor said. “Players should be taught not only how to give a hit but also how to receive one. I think that this would remove the novelty of being allowed to hit at a certain age as you get older.”

Nestor’s opinion could begin to explain the results of a recent poll available on the Saskatchewan Hockey Association website, where an overwhelming 71.6 per cent of people voted that they do not like that bodychecking was removed from peewee hockey.

Nestor believes that there may be other options that leagues could adopt that would allow for bodychecking to remain part of the game.

“Another option might be for leagues to decide to allow hitting at earlier ages for more advanced skilled teams,” Nestor suggested. “For example, at the peewee age players in Tier 1 leagues might be allowed to hit while lower tiers do not. It will be interesting to see what spring leagues do next year as they do not fall under the authority of Hockey Canada.”

Although the concerns of players, fans and parents could eventually help hockey remain the game that Canadians fell in love with many years ago, for Watson the future of contact looks grim unless other provinces begin to view bodychecking the same way that Saskatchewan does.

“We are one of the only provinces to look at checking as a skill,” he said.

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