Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Sandman
1) This is not the NHL. its HS hockey.
My son plays HS hockey in MA and I have attended nearly every game for several years. It can get chippy. He is more of the 5'9/145 size .
Legal issues aside, IMO that was a high hit and he went for his head. no question. Size has nothing to do with it. You can not hit the head and you can not hit from behind, period. Every high hit I have seen like that (and I have seen several this season alone at the HS level where kids were not even hurt) has been delt with game misconduct, major penalty, and the kid normally misses between 2 and 5 games. Further, if the TEAM gets more than 3 of those during the season, they are done, even if they are in the playoffs. (I have read the MIAA rulebook and spoken to refs about why they made the call they did)
This was yet another ref problem in MA which has some of the most inconsistent refs I have ever seen.
My son was recently playing in Canada against Canadian teams and the refs are completely different...They never let it escalate to get to this. Looking at clips like this do not show the problem....I would bet my last dollar that there were other factors prior in the game that led up to this and if they refs would have shut down that behavior, this probably would not have happened.
As far as it being "clean".... come on, he almost took his head off. No way that was clean. A clean hit is a shoulder to chest hit...that was no clean hit. The hitter came at him with his arms which were WAY too high.
Yes you do expect to make contact when you play sports like this but not be decapitated, this is HS sports, these are kids. I don't care if the kid is nice, and didn't mean to do it. He hit him high. There is a penalty for that. It should have been called.
If you look at these two stills...
1) the kid is lining him up for a hit after the puck is gone and the goalie has it
2) the second show the hitters arms and hands
bad hit.
Further if you watch the ref who saw the hit, right after the hit, he raised his arm indicating a penalty
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You can't compare HS hockey to the NHL. The NHL game is played by elite athletes who are much faster and stronger than these kids. Granted, it's still a fast and violent game, but nothing like the NHL or even junior hockey.
How can you know that he was going for the kids head? The entire play happened in a split second. It's easy to watch a video in slow motion or look at still photos and draw conclusions, but unless you can read the bigger kids mind you have no idea what he was thinking. Having played hockey my whole life, I know things happen quickly and you don't always have the time to thnk about where your shoulder is going to hit the other player.
Hits to the head happen almost every game. You line up a player and when they try to go low around you they sometimes catch an elbow or sholder to the head. It's even worse when the kid getting hit is skating with his head down. That's what happened in this case. Shame on his coach for not drilling it into his head to keep his head up and on a swivel when you are carrying the puck. And as far as the puck being out of his posession, see how long it was off his stick in real time. The hit was a continuation of the play.
It sucks that he got hurt, but injuries happen in sports. That's why they have parents sign waivers. I broke an ankle playing hockey my junior year because the Zamboni entrance doors weren't closed all the way. I didn't sue the rink. I skated the last 3 weeks of the season taped up and got a cast when the season ended. My senior year, I got hit from behind into the boards and fractured my right hand behind all 4 of my fingers (boxers fracture). The kid who hit me got a minor penalty and I missed the rest of the season. And get this, I never even thought to press charges or sue him. My freshman year playing football, I was speared when I reached up to catch a pass. I ended up in the ICU with a ruptured speen and cracked ribs. I missed 6 weeks of school because they missed the speen at first and sent me home to rest my ribs. I almost bled out that weekend at home. Thank goodness my mom recognized that I was white as a ghost and took me back to the ER. I never thought to press charges agaisnt the kid who hit me or sue the hospital for almost letting me die. I figured that there were risks to playing violent sports.
This country is gonna end up with a bunch of kids growing up afraid of taking risks because their parents shielded them from life. It's pretty sad.