Imagine that you are a hockey player and are skating down the ice without a visor on your helmet, and suddenly a player from the other team shoots the puck and it hits you in the eye traveling at 70-90 miles per hour. Your face is covered in blood and you can’t see to skate off the ice. As the athletic trainer cleans the blood up you wonder if you will ever be able to see again. After a trip to the doctor you learn that you will have cloudy vision in that eye for the rest of your life and will never be able to play hockey again. If you had known that this was going to happen, would you have worn a face mask or even a visor? It is possible to go completely blind if you get hit in the eye with a hockey puck, yet many hockey players chose to play without a visor or face mask. A visor will keep players safe, it will not make them any less manly, and if they wear one all the kids who look up to them will want to wear one. Because of this all professional players should have to wear a visor and have a face mask as an option. A visor or shield is a piece of plastic that attaches to a hockey helmet and goes to about a person’s nose. A visor can protect a player from getting hit in the eyes by pucks, and lose sticks (Ask). A face mask is a cage that covers the players face completely and prevents pucks and sticks from hitting a player in the face. The most common hockey injuries are cuts by a player’s mouth and chin form sticks and pucks. A face mask protects against these while a shield does not (Ask). Face masks are required in all levels of hockey except professional, if professionals had the option to wear one they could protect themselves from flying pucks.
Safety is the main reason that hockey players should wear face masks and sh...
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In “Its Time to Think About Visors,” Dryden exposes the fact that the stereotypes of risk in sport have pushed athletes to continue to compromise safety even with advancements in equipment worn. Dryden first explores this while talking about players from the minor leagues who have worn visors for all of their lives reaching the NHL and then stopping, stating, “Then most decide to play as they had never had before, with no facial protection at all.” This shows that even with athletes that have had this safety all of their lives they decide to stop when they reach the NHL because they see the stereotype created by the fans watching that push these players to risk their safety in order to bring a new excitement to the game. Even though the new rookies have been protected by visors the amount of influence of the huge fans of hockey pressure into danger that before they were safe from. In addition to this Dryden adds how there is appeal towards the dangers of life expressing, “People are attracted to risk. Near misses are thrilling.” This demonstrates that audiences don’t want to see players seriously injured but instead the close calls that come with sport and the smaller injuries that some equipment has gotten rid
Are current equipment regulations enough to keep our hockey athletes safe? I ask this after the life threatening injury that recently occurred here in Buffalo. However this isn’t the first time that the NHL (National Hockey League) has seen injuries of this magnitude. What were these injuries? How did they affect the NHL rules? What kind of rules are in place today? What is the NHL doing about neck guards? These questions and more will be answered as we take a look into NHL injuries, the history of equipment regulations, current equipment regulations, and the debate over neck guards.
Ice hockey, a sport that has been in existence for over two hundred years, has become a fan favorite across the globe. From Canada to Sweden, you will be able to find some of the best ice hockey players in the world; both male and female. This pastime has instilled a unique tradition throughout the years of its practice by a combination of both physical skill and mental strength. Although it did not provide aid to globalization, it has created a worldwide culture that many people are proud to be a part of. Since its inception until now, there has been a great deal of gender stereotyping concerning the sport. Regardless, ice hockey will continue to be a lucrative market, as well as a cherished hobby for many years to come.
First, the rules that are enforced are a great way of making the game safe for the players. There are rules like, not being allowed to tackle certain ways. For example, if you tackle someone from the back by pulling them, then that is said to be an illegal tackle. It is also said that it is illegal for someone to pull on others facemask when tackling. There are many others rules that are enforced in the game. Another one is the rule that says, Head to Head is not allowed. What that basically is that you cannot tackle someone by contacting your helmet to the opposing player. This rule makes it greatly safe because it reduces the numbers of injuries that occur to the head and the neck. The head is the key part of the human body. When someone hits another player with the helmet in the head, it reduces the risks of concussion and that can result to serious and severe body failures, including being...
The future of hockey protective equipment is closer than originally thought. New helmets and equipment designs aid in the protection of all skill level...
("N.F.L. Players’ Union Weighs the Benefits and the Pitfalls of Helmet Sensors. This technology helps prevent a player with a concussion that he doesn’t know about from continuing to play during that game and cause more damage to his head that can last forever. Another good advancement is helmets that have a design that uses energy-managing materials and a facemask attachment system that disperses energy from frontal impacts. This helps prevent the head from taking the main part of the blow and disperses the energy to lessen the likelihood of becoming seriously injured from a hit. These types of helmets have a certain shelf life meaning you can only use them for so many years before they have to be replaced, this is beneficial so that the equipment stays up to the new standards of safety for the players as well as prevents them from becoming stressed over the years and breaking.
It’s Saturday Night, the crowd gone wild with an epic hit on the opposing team. The occasional drunk sitting next to you, as your kids enjoy delicious Dipping Dots. Right as the momentum is swinging towards the home team, a penalty is called. A powerplay opportunity is awarded to the defending team. With the home team fighting with all their might to defend from a goal, down 4 on 5, they run around like chickens with their heads chopped off, trying to get the puck out of their zone. Then when everything seems to simmer down, a fight breaks between the bulkiest guys on each team, punches being thrown, blood spattering across the ice. In hockey today, there are two main leagues in the United states: the NHL, and USA Hockey. Just like in any game, there are basic rules that must be followed. In these two leagues there are similarities and differences in basic “golden” rules, benefits from playing, and the official’s code of conduct.
In 1994, the Canadian Federal government compromised and voted to make hockey Canada’s National Winter Sport and lacrosse Canada’s National Summer Sport. Which Sport should be named Canada’s true national sport? Hockey is in the blood of all Canadians. Millions can vividly remember the first time they put on a pair of skates and stepped onto the ice. Providing nation-wide entertainment, Canadians are overcome by emotional realization that “Canada is hockey.”- Mike Weir. Generations of Canadians were brought up listening to Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday evening on the radio. It is more than just a sport in Canada, it defines the culture. Look no further than the five-dollar bill. One will observe a group of children playing a game of hockey on a frozen pond. The sport is part of Canada’s national identity.
Helmets drastically reduce the tremendous number of deaths caused by head injuries as well as reducing the severity of any ...
Sink M. (2002, January 31). HOCKEY; Youth Game Postponed After Fight by Parents. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/01/sports/hockey-youth-game-postponed-after-fight-by-parents.html
Men also had greater magnitudes of contact compared to their female counterparts. Unfortunately most injuries in ice hockey are from blunt force or direct contact. Concussions are the most common injury in men’s and women’s collegiate hockey. Interestingly enough is that women’s hockey showed a higher rate of concussions than men’s hockey. The study pointed out various options for head-impact mechanisms in ice hockey. The playing area is solid ice and the boards surrounding the area consist of rigid boards. Pucks, when shot, can go over the speed of 80mph. Players can possibly exceed speeds of 30mph. Lastly, because ice hockey is a full contact sport, players are purposefully trying to collide with one another. All of these issues are reasonable mechanisms of head-injuries. This article also references another article which classifies concussion mechanisms in ice hockey into seven categories. These seven categories are: contact with another player, contact with the ice, contact with the boards or glass, contact with a stick, contact with the puck, contact with the goal, and no apparent contact. In this article's study about half of recorded
At the time of 1980, a rule was in place that no professional hockey players could play in the Olympics; however, the Soviets were able to dodge this rule by claiming that their government-trained players were recruited from the amateur Central Army hockey club (Herb Brooks-Miracle Man). The American team consisted of a bunch of rag-tag college kids and amateurs while most of the players on the Soviet team had been practicing together for a decade and were coached in the finest training facilities in the world (Herb Brooks-Miracle Man). Many people are unaware of just how great the Soviet team was at this time in history (Russell). They had won eight of the past nine Olympic gold medals and five of the last seven world championships (Herb Brooks-Miracle Man). They defeated the NHL’s All-Stars, an American hockey team packed of the professional league’s star players, just the following year by a huge margin (Russell). The Soviets were even nicknamed the “Big Red Machine”, because th...
American football is full of exciting competition, but do we realize the danger! Helmet safety in football remains an immense problem as the sport accounts for the highest incidence of concussions. Since leather football helmets, the technology for safer helmets has improved drastically and continue to improve. The development of newly designed helmets and technology has lowered the risk of head injuries for players. Furthermore, improvements in helmet testing methods have led to better understanding head injuries and the protectiveness of the helmet. In respect, football helmet safety still remains a challenge, such as a necessity of a proper categorization system to rank helmets and regulations to improve helmet safety. Regardless, standards and regulations attempt to address helmet safety through government intervention and a proper measuring system for football helmets. Despite the cultural perception of football, measures are taken to ensure safety, such as the reforms and education with regards to playing safer football. I intend to address the technological advances and regulation of football towards the discussion of helmet safety. Therefore the aggresivity in football’s culture should embrace stronger helmet standards and regulation that are promoted through improved testing methods and innovations because of the need to prevent further dangerous head injuries, especially concussions.
While the use of helmets does aid in protecting players from brain trauma, they also increase the risky behavior of players; this is called risk compensation. Risk compensation is the adjustment of individual behavior, responding to the perceived changes in risk (TheFreeDictionary.com). Most people that wear helmets have a pre-conceived idea that, because they have a helmet on, they can possess more daring behaviors and be fine. The helmet is basically thought of as a tool to hit harder, or improve performance in today’s culture. Adventure writer and pilot, Lane Wallace (2011) accurately understands the dangers of helmets being used incorrectly, and how they are used as weapons instead of safety. Wallace also theorizes like the NFL, a change in football culture and of viewpoints towards helmets would vastly reduce trauma to the