For many of the players, it comes down to personal choice.
“I think it should just be your own decision,” one said.
“Guys would be smart to use them, but I don’t think it needs to be mandatory,” another added.
“It’s their own risk, right?” said a third. “It’s their life.”
Some of the players voting no indicated that, for their part, they do wear neck guards and other cut-protective gear, including one who had been cut by a skate in the past.
“I wear it. It happened to me,” he said. “I think it’s up to you. I think that there (should) be no requirement.”
“I don’t think you should require them to, but I think it’s stupid not to (wear one),” another player said. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“We’re all big boys,” said a third. “I personally wear them. But being required to? No.”
One idea many players shared was to mandate laceration protection at minor and youth levels first, with the idea of eventually bringing it to the NHL as players get more used to wearing the equipment.
“In the NHL, I don’t think it should be required,” one player said. “But in minor hockey, I think it should.”
“If the NHL mandated it, I’d be OK with that,” said another. “But they should grandfather in everyone who’s used to not playing with it, like they did with visors.”>
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but in my minor hockey years in the 90’s in Canada it was mandatory to wear neck protection. The ref would be standing at the door and you couldn’t get on the ice if you didn’t have one. This apparently didn’t make it’s way up in the last 30 years.
And honestly, they are ok with all the rest of the equipment but the fucking neck guard is a step to far? Seriously? It’s one of the least invasive part of the equipment and people have actually died from having their throats slit by a blade.
I think the fact that this happens so little has something to do with it. You get hit with pucks in the pads all the time. Its a high return for the discomfort. How many people get their necks cut over a season?
Yeah, exactly, it’s a very low probability event. The players are much more likely to die in a car crash as they drive to a game or the airport, but no one is talking about that risk.
Probability is irrelevant, that’s why the players shouldn’t be involved in taking this decision in my opinion. We shouldn’t have to wait until it kills a guy on live tv to act especially since it’s such a minor inconvenience in the end. And when it will happen, everybody will try to act so dumbfounded and call that a freak accident when it could so easily be prevented.
I do agree with the statement that they don’t believe it’s going to happen though. It looks like another example of a flawed “we’re big boys” macho point of view.
Probability is extremely relevant. By that logic we shouldn’t be playing hockey at all, because someone could die from a bad hit or something.
Hell we’ve lost nearly an entire hockey team twice in recent memory - that team in Russia to a plane crash and that team in Canada to a bus crash. Even one of those incidents accounts for more deaths than all of the people who have died by being cut by a skate blade.
I’m not against people wearing them if they want, and I don’t have a problem with the league mandating them in the future if the players agree, but to act like this is some kind of epidemic is a major overreaction.
We’re talking about a band of fabric you wear around the neck here, not a fucking plane ride. And there is massive amount of precautions taken in driving and 10x more when flying. These are not good comparisons if you really want to talk risk mitigation.
Dude, it’s okay for people to have different opinions than you. No need to get upset. I’m done with this conversation.
This is the same league that had to grandfather helmet rules. Someone has to die on nhl ice for this to become mandatory.
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