Fixing the NHL: visors

Much as I enjoy hockey and like watching NHL games — there are places where the NHL is plain old broken or braindamaged.

For instance, in the last couple of days, Mattias Ohlund gets hit in the face again with a puck and suffers an injury just below the eye he almost lost, and Pavol Demitra suffers a bruised retina and is out AT LEAST a month.

But if you listen to the league, and more stridently the union, wearing visors isn’t a safety issue, it’s an issue of personal choice. Players complain it hinders their eyesight (true, but if everyone wears visors, they’re equally hindered) — and if you take a look at the list of top scorers in the league, you’ll see guys like Theo Fleury, Jaro Jagr, Luc Robataille, Ziggy Palffy — it sure seems the GOOD players aren’t hindered by wearing visors.

The league and the union needs to get real here. The union, especially, is, as Laurie likes to put it, thinking with the wrong part of their body, and dealing with this in terms of the macho image issues, not the safety issues. And while the players are posturing and the league is turtling on this issue, the fans get to watch elite players like Demitra and Ohlund not play due to eye injuries, and players like Brian Berard are permanently maimed, lose their career and will have their lives changed — all for our entertainment.

Eyes are irreplaceable — they affect a player’s career, and more importantly, their life. The attitude that it’s a personal choice is a false one, or else the NHL ought to remove their rules requiring helmets, pads and cups (although, speaking of thinking with the wrong part of their body, if you think any hockey player is stupid enough to play without a cup… — but these same players are more than willing to risk their eyes?). As fans, eye injuries cost us the ability to watch these players — is the league really better because Demitra’s out for a few weeks?

Visors aren’t a complete solution, and we can’t prevent injuries just by wearing visors, but they are an easy way to reduce these injuries, and the only thing standing between a player and the loss of an eye is the macho attitude of canadian hockey players (thank you, Don Cherry) — European players seem to have no problem wearing visors and succeeding in the NHL using them. It’s time for the NHL to stop thinking with its testosterone and make visors mandatory for players in the league. Either that, or OUTLAW cups unless you also wear a visor. It’s a lot easier to go through life minus a testicle or two than it is going through life without an eye or two — but you wouldn’t know it the way the league acts.

(update)

Darren Eliot chimes in:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/darren_eliot/news/2001/02/12/eliot_insider/

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