NHL Board Of Governors Vote For Winnipeg Move And Rule Changes
Added on Jun 21, 2011 by J Merrill in
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The NHL’s board of governors met today and approved two major issues. The first one being that they have approved the sale, and the move of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg. The other one being the new rule changes involving illegal hits, and illegal head hits to make hockey safer. After the still unnamed Winnipeg team sold well over 13,000 season tickets everyone knew the vote was a matter of formality, but no one knew exactly how they would change Rule 48 and if the vote would go through.
Brendan Shanahan, NHL Senior V.P. of Player Safety and Hockey Operations addressed the media, and detailed the exact differences between the rule 48 last season, and the one in front of us. Basically, last season rule 48 focused on lateral and blindside hits, and the penalty involved a major penalty and possible supplementary discipline. Now the they have taken the words lateral and blindside out of the rule, and removed any ambiguity the players had on the ice. The rule change also changed the punishment, and the major penalty has been replaced with a minor penalty provision. Shanahan said “Now, the confusion some of the players have expressed in the past as to what direction they’re approaching a player, what direction a player is facing, east, west, north, south, that has all been taken out. Anywhere on the ice, coming from any direction, you target the head and make it a principle point of contact, you’ll be subject to a two-minute penalty on the ice for Rule 48. You’ll also be, as with all two-minute penalties or non-calls, subject to supplementary discipline.”
The other rule change is to rule 41 which has to do with boarding. The rule now reads like this “A boarding penalty shall be imposed on any player who checks or pushes a defenseless opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to hit or impact the boards violently or dangerously.” The words “pushes” and “defenseless” were previously not included in the definition of the boarding rule. Defenseless replaced the word vulnerable.
Shanahan said that even hits that don’t look violent can end in serious injury, and the way it was before limited the scope of the intent. Shanahan said “What we did is we took the onus off the violence of the hit itself and added the word ‘push’ in there. It really has more to do with the violence in the collision with the boards. We don’t necessarily think it has to be a violent hit to cause a violent crash, so we broadened the rule by putting in the word ‘push.’ ”
Shanahan also said that he understands that some players will use this as a tactic to draw players. As a former player himself, he said it would be very easy to turn at the last minute to make a hit seem even worse. Now the rule will give the referee discretion to determine whether the recipient of the contact placed himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the collision and whether the check was unavoidable. He continued “There are, believe it or not, players that will use this as a tactic. They will turn their back at the last instance to sort of try and draw a boarding penalty. We felt that if the hitter has a chance to let up on the hit and minimize the hit, he should. There are also some instances when the hit is occurring, a player moves simultaneously with the hit and we feel that if a player puts himself in a vulnerable position like that, the circumstances of the hit can be viewed differently.”
When the NHL put thee rules in place they knew they would evolve, and they knew they had to be careful of changes that could effect the way the game is played. They want the players to be safe, and think things can be changed to increase safety, but everyone wants the game to look and play the same. The steps the NHL are taking should be heralded as positive because if they take the right steps they have the chance to stem unnecessary injuries to players league wide.
