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How much protection do we need?

10/17/2018, 9:45am CDT
By Jack Blatherwick, Let's Play Hockey Columnist

Do pads in every conceivable place restrict essential movement for young hockey players?

There’s something about seeing a mother loaded down with a baby in one arm, son’s hockey bag in the other and a third bag for unknown purpose that caught my attention.  A minute later, a young girl appeared, small enough to fit in the equipment bag she struggled to carry, and I felt like I had to say something.

But, as you’ll see in this column, I can’t add words of wisdom, just questions, because I know nothing about 6-year-olds. For 15 minutes I’d been watching a parade of dads carrying equipment bags – twice the volume, if not twice the weight of the pint-sized player who would soon find places on the body for all that stuff. Then, in full armor they waddle onto the ice to learn the fundamentals of skating.

Watching a few minutes of practice, I was reminded of team mascots that wear a costume so big and fat they can barely move their limbs. I wonder if children’s lifetime skating habits are severely compromised learning to skate while wearing an over-stuffed clown uniform. 

I get it. This is essential protection. Hockey kids can fall and bruise their butts. It’s interesting that speed skating beginners don’t bruise – or maybe they never fall? I don’t know which it is, but they certainly don’t wear pants that prevent the wide, extended range of motion required to skate like experts.

Nor did Evgeny Kuznetsov wear all that gear. He’s the Washington Capitals’ lightning-fast centerman who grew up in eastern Russia, wearing sweat pants, mittens, stocking cap, elbow pads and minimal shin pads. I asked him, while recording his speed during Capitals’ skating tests, if his parents carried his equipment bag to the arena while he learned to skate. 

“Nyet,” he said. “No bag, just skates and stick. No arena. Just outside ice.”  

That sounded a lot like every North American player I questioned about their journey to the NHL. Not just the first skating experiences, but the early sessions with pucks and sticks – no bag. Just sweatpants, skates, shin pads, elbow pads and occasionally a helmet.

Do hockey pants with pads in every conceivable place restrict essential movement? Is the central nervous system memorizing that restricted motion? Does all this armor increase the false impression that high sticks, slashes and checking into the boards are not dangerous? Are shoulder pads essential protection for kids who weigh 50 pounds? Or are they just more weight, restriction and hassle for parents to carry from car-to-rink?

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Tag(s): State Of Hockey  News  Jack Blatherwick