Jump to content

Loach

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    88

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    5

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Loach

    rules question

    in Western Pennsylvania Youth Hockey

    Posted

    Actually for adult hockey (including NHL), you don't have to put someone in the box immediately to serve the major for someone who got a major and a game misconduct. You can put someone in there at a whistle later on in the major so the player can come out of the penalty box before time expires.  The risk you take is that if there are no whistles, the powerplay could be longer than 5 minutes until there is a stoppage. 

    Coaches almost always put a player in the box to serve anyways, but I remember Babcock didn't and got burned a couple of years ago:

    https://nhl.nbcsports.com/2017/03/23/its-all-my-fault-mike-babcock-takes-responsibility-for-penalty-box-blunder/ 

     

    But, the point is that in adult hockey you wouldn't have to put someone in the box if the major happened at the end of the game.  So, I was going to write that the coach didn't have to put a kid in the box, but I just looked it up and it turns out they have a different rule for youth than adult hockey, saying that a substitute player must serve immediately for youth.  If you are interested, the different rules for youth and adult is spelled out in section d) of Rule 403:

    https://www.usahockeyrulebook.com/page/show/1084479-rule-403-major-penalties

     

    Not sure why they bother to have separate rules for something like this. So, the rule is already basically already there, it just doesn't apply to youth hockey for some reason.

     

    Maybe one of pgh’s biggest money grabs

    in Western Pennsylvania Youth Hockey

    Posted

    4 hours ago, jmmartinprov1 said:

    So I’m not getting into an argument on a blog. And should just ignore all the BS. 
     

    But in my exit I will say this. He’s played AA for the last 5 years and was bored and didn’t want to play AA again. He wanted to play at a higher level so he would see shots. But according to you I’m pushing him. 
     

    Secondly not to start an argument but you brought it up the PPE black refused to play my sons team PW Major Year and Bantam Major year. Is that for the same reason you stated above they didn’t want to lose? But We can’t call them out correct?

    As for embracing the opportunity that’s all he has done. Cut for size one to many times. He wants a shot and no one will give it to him because he’s not 6 ft tall. He’s doing what he wants to do. He’s not worried about Org Swag or an extra A he’s out there just trying to prove himself. He’s at the gym 3 days a week and on the ice as well not because I make him because he wants it. So if he goes 2-40 he will hope the 2 come from when he is in net. He knows as do I it will be a long season. 

    He had a choice to play somewhere else and he chose this not me.

     

     

    Well, kudos for putting it all out there. I agree that the AAA label thing has gotten out of hand, but if you and your kid are going in with eyes wide open looking for a challenge, then best of luck to you both.

    Middle School hockey

    in Western Pennsylvania Youth Hockey

    Posted

    I get what you are saying LLB, and I would not go back in time and take body checking out of my youth hockey playing days so I've struggled with this.  Even though I got diagnosed with two official concussions and probably had a few more undiagnosed, I still miss the thrill of laying a good hit when I'm playing in the beer league that I'm currently in. I'm not advocating removing body checking from NHL, AHL/ECHL, College or AAA programs.

    But, I was at a house game in the spring and watched a couple of bigger kids taking runs at a couple of smaller kids that were clearly relative beginners to the game. And it really hit me as what is really the point in having body checking at this level? Seemed pointless and there was the rare hit that actually served the purpose of causing a turn-over with the puck. It was pretty ridiculous to watch to be honest and I couldn't really come up with a good reason for why body checking should be allowed in a league like this beyond this is just the way it is.

    I think if you kept body-checking at AAA and the top AA divisions in a league like PAHL, it would work. We played a Toronto 2005 team (AA division) last year that played in a non-body-checking league there but played body checking in a tourney with us in Detroit.  They seemed to adapt fine and I was actually pretty impressed with their team. I think kids who are bubble kids cut from AA teams would adapt fine after a couple of weeks if they make it the following year.  Bubble cuts for AAA could play in the body checking AA league.

    Middle School hockey

    in Western Pennsylvania Youth Hockey

    Posted

    8 hours ago, Lifelongbender said:

    Actually, when I heard that PAHL might be considering making a change along the lines of eliminating more body checking, I did a bunch of research about it. Most of the research on this has been conducted, unsurprisingly, by Canadian universities. This quote is from one of the studies I found (and yes, I admit it's just one study, but their findings were typical):

    "It has been posited that learning to body check at a younger age might somehow protect players from injuries related to body checking at older ages. The literature, however, does not support this (McPherson, Rothman & Howard, 2006). A further comparison between Bantam minor hockey players from Quebec (no previous body checking experience) and Alberta (2 years of body checking experience) revealed a similar rate of injury in both groups in their first year of Bantam (Emery and Kang et al., 2011; McLaughlin, 2011). In addition, the rates of injury for the Bantam players in Quebec were similar to those of the Alberta players in their first year of body checking, suggesting that regardless of when body checking is introduced there will be a spike in injuries sustained. In a breakdown of injuries sustained, there was no difference between the groups in terms of concussions, severe injury or severe concussions. Contrary to common misconceptions, introducing body checking at an older age (Bantam) when players are larger, faster, and size discrepancies may be greater does not result in significantly increased rates of injury nor does it result in more severe injury."

    Both set of emphases were bold in the original text. Note that, at the time the report was produced, PeeWees were permitted to body check in Alberta, but in Quebec body checking started at Bantams. The full report is available here: https://www.hockeycalgary.ca/assets/file/BC Final Report.pdf

    Now, in my my heart I actually agree with the logic that starting body checking earlier makes for more prepared players, as I argued above, but it appears from the data that injuries as a whole are not affected by starting earlier (or later, for that matter). I admit that I find these results entirely non-intuitive, but that's what the report prepared for Hockey Calgary found from the data. It's a complex issue. I honestly can't help but wonder if my own beliefs on this are skewed entirely by my experiences and biases on it.

     

    Yes, thanks - that was one of the studies I was mentioning.  There was a period of time of where Quebec had taken hitting out of peewee while other provinces such as Alberta kept it in at peewee. Emery did a large study of injuries (over 1000 players in each province) and found that injuries were 3-fold less in peewee in Quebec (no body contact) and the injury rate in bantam in Quebec was about the same as it what it was in peewee in Alberta, which is what LLB summarized above.  If you want to see some of these studies, here they are:

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/186037 (original study comparing Quebec to Alberta when they had different body checking ages)

    https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/24/1767.long   (looks at the change specific to Alberta after they moved checking to bantam)

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153513/ (looks at whether introducing body checking at younger ages lessens injuries compared to older ages)

     

    I had the chance to go to the Summit on Hockey: Action on Concussion that was held at the Mayo Clinic in 2017 (https://ce.mayo.edu/sports-medicine/content/mayo-clinic-sports-medicine-ice-hockey-summit-iii-action-concussion-2017#group-tabs-node-course-default2)

    I saw a lot of this data (and much more) presented and discussed and alot of the USA Hockey bigwigs were there.  That's when I started to change my mind. The take-home message of the summit was to try and eliminate body checking from non-elite hockey levels.  I already mentioned that there are difficulties with that in terms of the bubble players, which rock mentioned.  I don't have an easy solution for that.  But, based on the Summit, I came away thinking that body checking was going to eventually get weaned out at lower levels, and I think we are starting to see that now.

    As a scientist, I've tried to just look at the data rather than going with what I think based on just how it has always been done.

     

    • Like 1

    Middle School hockey

    in Western Pennsylvania Youth Hockey

    Posted

    My view on checking has changed. I used to have the same view mentioned above that checking should be brought back to Peewee but I've been swayed by the data more recently.

    Before I get labelled a softie, I'll give some background.  When I played, body-checking was legal at the peewee age which was ages 12 and 13 back then. I grew up in a small Northern Ontario town, playing on a peewee travel team when I was 12 that played local games (i.e. when not traveling to tourneys) in the bantam house league - which meant I was playing in a body checking league against 15 year olds when I was 12.  My oldest son is now a senior in high school, but played regular shifts on his varsity team as a freshmen, meaning he was going up against players 3 or 4 years older than him then. My youngest is an 05 who just completed his first year of checking without issue.

    The point of giving my background is that my stance didn't change due to some fear of my kids reaching body checking age or that I was scared of the unknown as a parent who hasn't played the game before. I learned body checking at a young age (I played competitively at decently high levels through junior hockey until age 21) and both my kids have gone through it.

    But, I'm a scientist for my day job and I've recently looked at some of the big studies that have reported how injuries have decreased in peewee hockey players once body contact was removed from that level. Some of these studies have very large datasets and it's pretty convincing. It took awhile to reconcile the data with my own initial thoughts that 'I know how hockey should be played and body checking is vital'.  I won't post the studies here, but you can go to Pubmed website and search body checking youth hockey and bunch will pop up.  Carolyn Emery is an author on a few of the big ones.

    So, I'm no longer for bringing body checking back to peewee.  I'm also coming around to getting it out of the lower level leagues. The reality is that the vast majority of youth hockey players are not going to play D1 or high levels of junior hockey, never mind professional hockey beyond that.  They are headed to playing in non-contact beer league hockey and will hopefully get a lot of enjoyment from the game with decades of recreational play.  I see the merit in getting it out of most youth leagues, but body checking would remain in certain leagues for more elite players that are keeping the avenue open for making a career out of it (AAA or high level AA in youth hockey at bantam and above, D1/juniors, professional). There's some issues in how to implement this policy (i.e. how does a kid who isn't playing in a body checking league make the transition to a more elite league if they are a late bloomer), but the data indicates it's the right thing to figure out.

    • Like 2
×
×
  • Create New...