WHY ARE NHL INJURIES ON THE RISE? – PART I

It has been reported that there have been in excess of 120 more injuries to National Hockey League players this season as compared to the same time last year. So what’s going on? It seems every night when watching a game or highlights of the entire nights action on NHL Network’s “NHL On the Fly”, there are two or more major injuries. Some of these injuries are ending a player’s season prematurely.

There seems to be several reasons for the growing injured reserved lists on each NHL roster this season, and we will explore each of them. In Part 1, we will examine the first three:

1) The size of the players. Just as in every other professional sport, the average size (height and weight) of an NHL player is increasing, seemingly each year. Just as in the NBA, where a player that is 6-feet tall in the 1950’s was playing center on their respective team, today they would be lucky to even be considered as a small guard at that height. NHL players have seen a similar metamorphosis. The average player in 1955 stood 5-feet, 11-inches and weighed 180 pounds. Today, the same average player 6-feet, 1-inch and weighs in at around 205 pounds. And with the development of weight training, that’s an extra 25 pounds of pure muscle.

2) The evolution of the players equipment. It seems that a category like this would do wonders in measures towards PREVENTING players from sustaining more and more injuries. But two innovations in hockey equipment that seem to be contributing to player injuries are the development of the almost armored-suit type shoulder pads, which sometimes is used as a weapon as one player checks another. If there is any height discrepancy between the two players coming in contact, or if the unsuspecting player about to be hit doesn’t keep his head up, the results of such a hit can be disastrous. These armored shields for the shoulders are what players hitting the other will lead with and many times it will come in full and violent contact with the prone players head. The impact is that of taking a punch from a Mike Tyson in his prime square to the head. The amount of players sidelined due to concussions is alarming, at the very least.
Second, the development of sticks the players are using and the advancing technology to make the sticks lighter and shoot the puck harder and faster. These sticks have such a torque to them that more and more broken bones are occurring from blocking shots. Usually legs or feet are the most affected areas, but broken hands / fingers are frequently being seen. And this AFTER the retirement of Al MacInnis and Al Iafrate!

3) The speed of the game. Players are not only bigger and stronger, but also faster. With the speed of the game increased, a players ability to make a decision invariably has to be split-second. Some of the hits that players have been suspended for or that have otherwise been borderline suspension-worthy can be attributed to this factor. Take the hit put on Florida’s David Booth by Philadelphia Flyer Mike Richards.

Richards was not suspended for this hit and I understand the rationale behind it. Booth was carrying the puck into the Flyer zone and Richards wanted to separate him from the puck as he so often does. As he locked his sights on the puck-carrier, Booth then dished the puck at the last second and turned just as Richards drilled him. Richards has never been known as a head hunter and maybe that is what eventually saved the Flyer captain from a suspension. But the result was horrific, with Booth lying face-down and motionless on the ice for several minutes and sustaining a major concussion from which he has yet to return to the Panther lineup. I am a Flyer fan and as much as I was relieved when I heard that Richards was not suspended.  But I am a hockey fan first, and I’m not sure if no suspension was the right decision. Each player has to realize that they have an immense privilege to play in the National Hockey League, and that with that privilege comes responsibility.

Patrick Kaleta received a two-game suspension for this hit on Philadelphia’s Jared Ross.

While Kaleta’s reputation and past indiscretions may have played a hand in the suspension, this is another instance of a bang-bang play. Kaleta is coming in on the forecheck and Ross turns to face the glass just as Kaleta is about to hit him. This is pretty much the same hit that ex-Flyer defenseman Randy Jones put on Patrice Bergeron a couple of years back, a hit in which Jones also received a two-game suspension under the same circumstances.

With the player turning at the last moment, can another player be held responsible for the resulting hit? The more I see replays of these hits, I wonder if a suspension is even warranted. I guess if it’s determined that a player has time to let up on their strides still drives the prone player into the glass with full speed and ferocity, then it should carry a suspension. I would like to go on record and say that I would not like to be in NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell’s shoes on some of these borderline plays. While some hits are clear cut, there are others where a determination needs to be made of the offending players frame of mind, what he sees, how much time he has to react to the other player’s movements, and what his intentions are and I wouldn’t want that responsibility.

In Part II, we will look into more reasons why NHL injuries have increased at an alarming rate.

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