from Scott Stinson of the National Post,

This is what the idea of eliminating bodychecking from the game will run up against: decades of play in which contact between opponents has been an intrinsic part of the sport.

That’s not to say that those talking about the removal of hitting do not have a point. As deftly reported by my colleague Michael Traikos last week, luminaries like Ken Dryden and Eric Lindros broached the idea of non-contact hockey at a concussion symposium in London, Ont. Dryden noted that all the work that has gone into treating head injuries is not as effective as avoiding them in the first place. “The problem is science takes time and the games are being played tomorrow,” Dryden said. This matches what neurologists have been saying about blows to the head for years: as much as there is much uncertainty in the science about the specific risks of long-term brain injury from contact sports, the only certain way to reduce that risk is to not suffer blows to the head.

So, if hockey leagues want to truly reduce the concussion risk as much as they can, the solution is to ban the bodycheck.

more