Hosting, Small Ice, and Face Shields

There's a new article on USCHO at

[www.uscho.com]

with a quote from Schafer on face shields, among other things.

Adam has a touch of "nice guy in person, obnoxious guy in print" disorder. Um, not that half the posters on eLynah don't. Anyway, good article, worth following the link.

I would disagree that Michigan knows it's unfair that they host an NCAA game. The Yost denizens seem to feel it's their divine right. Minny seems to have a much healthier, "yep, we're gettin' away with murder, aint it grand?" attitude.

If the coaches are voting unanimously against the face shield, then why does the NC$$ keep it? Well, put it another way: what is the pure greed issue that keeps the rule in place despite the pure greed interest of avoiding liability? Presumably it's counter-liability: the minute they drop the face shield mandate and Johnny loses an eye, Johnny's parents will sue the NCAA for a gazillion dollars, so by putting it into place with all the safety hoopla, they have now effectively screwed themselves.



Post Edited (04-28-03 11:09)

Greg wrote:
Adam has a touch of "nice guy in person..."

Since when?

I find it mildly interesting that the issue of face shields gets debated to death every year, but no one ever mentions checking from behind.

On a related but less inflammatory rules note, I will wildly speculate that USA Hockey's going to drop the limit on stick blade curvature, and that the NCAA will follow within a year or two.

Yeah. Does Parker really think Travis Roy got paralyzed because he was wearing a face shield?

Personally I'd be in favor of eliminating the rule. If a guy loses an eye or a tooth because he didn't think he needed to wear a mask, then that's his problem.

Could an athlete really sue because he got hurt in a college game? well, of course he could sue, but would he have a chance of succeeding? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.

[Q]
Personally I'd be in favor of eliminating the rule. If a guy loses an eye or a tooth because he didn't think he needed to wear a mask, then that's his problem.
[/Q]

Except that the crux of the argument falls apart unless you explicitly forbid full cages, a la the NHL. However, American juniors who are over 18 can sign a waiver and wear a half shield. Few do, in my experience (0-2 per team in the Empire League).

[q]Since when[/q]

Age, OTOH, is even nicer in print.

Anyone notice that Willie Mitchell is currently wearing a full shield after suffering a facial injury? I guess he needed to get dispensation for that.

The problem with half-shields, from what I've heard, is that they can be more dangerous that no shields at all, since players tilt them back to see under the visor, which means the helmet is not properly positioned to protect against things like concussions.

Given the frivolous lawsuits that actually get awarded in this country, I think there's a very good chance that a player injured playing hockey in college could sue not only the university or the maker of the helmet or face shield, but even the manufacturer of the stick.

JH

It's funny how lawsuits are frivolous right up until the moment you're the one who's injured.

Please, don't jump down my throat, obviously there are some lawsuits that are frivolous. It's just that "frivolous lawsuits" is a phrase like "bad officiating" -- it's become so common that it's practically idiomatic, and after a certain point that in itself becomes highly suspect.

[Q]Greg said:

Adam has a touch of "nice guy in person, obnoxious guy in print" disorder.[/Q]Then Age took question with him being a nice guy in person.

Hey, what's going on? How was he obnoxious in print, and do we really need to malign him about how he acts in person? I know some might say this is all in jest, but if so that's what the smilies are meant to convey.

Personally I have always liked his articles, and don't feel that anything he said in this article was obnoxious, rather a recap of what has been said before. It sounds like he did get alot of obnoxious comments about what was said before, but his article about the host sites was just explaining the rules as laid down by the NCAA, and giving his take on the reasons for them.

I think we all need to see a hockey game so we can relax.
[Q]Keith wrote:

Yeah. Does Parker really think Travis Roy got paralyzed because he was wearing a face shield?[/Q]No, he has talked about this alot before and there have been articles about it. In fact as I remember there was one at the time of this or last year's BU-CU series. The point is that the unspoken rule about not stick checking into the face seems to have been relaxed since there is so much supposed facial protection.

For the record, I meant that Adam's article starts off obnoxiously, which reading it I think was completely intentional -- I think he was being "over the top" funny. Once I wrote that I expressly wanted to make sure nobody thought I was slagging Adam, which is why the "nice in person" thing got added, plus I've been called that myself. You're shocked, I know...

Highly unlikely that a player could sue over an injury sustained during a sporting event. Sports is one of the few places where the "assumption of risk" defense still operates with some force.

Suing a helmet or face shield maufacturer is perhaps another story, but the player would have to show that the product was in some way defective (meaning that it did not do something which it was intended to do). Hard to argue that an injury like Travis Roy's was in any way caused by defective equipment.

I wonder if a player who came in with the old shield rule, was on scholarship, and then had the rule changed could successfully sue on the theory that while he could always choose not to play, that would be imposing undue strain on him because he needed the scholarship? No idea what the case law looks like, but I would think he could mount some sort of a "bait and switch" challenge -- the scholarship implicitly promised certain protections that were subsequently unilaterally withdrawn, hence the school has reneged, yadda yadda?



Post Edited (04-28-03 21:04)

Don Cherry has griped about the full facemask in college hockey for years. He insists that it causes poor stick discipline that follows players into the pro game.

They may have a point about it, but having never played competitively I really don't know what's better.

The only problem there, Greg, is he still has the option to use the shield, even though the NC$$ doesn't make it mandatory. So the "sitting out" option is somewhat extreme. The only way that flies is if he was forced to remove his shield by his coach and chose to sit out instead of risking injury.

BTW, while we're talking paired words, how about "hazardous chemicals". As a ChemE, that's one that drives me nuts.

JH

[q]Highly unlikely that a player could sue over an injury sustained during a sporting event. Sports is one of the few places where the "assumption of risk" defense still operates with some force.

Suing a helmet or face shield maufacturer is perhaps another story, but the player would have to show that the product was in some way defective (meaning that it did not do something which it was intended to do). Hard to argue that an injury like Travis Roy's was in any way caused by defective equipment.[/q]

Couldn't you sue the player that caused the injury, theoretically anyways?

Don Cherry was also against helmets (and may still be for all I know). When he was the Bruins' coach back in the late 70's, when a majority of NHL players had begun to wear helmets, only two of his players wore them. He used to have colorful quotes like "Some of these guys wear helmets thick enough to stop a shot from a Colt 45 and they're still afraid to go into the corners".

Grant MacIntyre '05 wrote:

Couldn't you sue the player that caused the injury, theoretically anyways?

Well, consent is a defense to battery. I think that agreeing to play a sport is generally considered "consent" to certain forms of bodily contact that would be tortious in the outside world. It's possible that if a player did something extreme, and outside what might ordinarily be expected in the course of play, then one might be able to argue that the injured player had not consented to that type of conduct.

On the other hand, the victim's consent is not a defense to criminal liability for battery. I believe Marty McSorley was charged with criminal assault for his attack on Donald Brashear a few years ago, but I don't know of any other instances of things like that happening.

[Q]I believe Marty McSorley was charged with criminal assault for his attack on Donald Brashear a few years ago, but I don't know of any other instances of things like that happening.[/Q]

Dino Ciccarelli is intimately familiar with another instance of an NHL player being prosecuted for a stick foul.

Hehe, he might have had a point with some guys. Grapes has some interesting viewpoints on equipment and conduct, some of which might actually warrant some attention from both the NHL and NCAA. Lately, he's been on a crusade against hard elbow pads because he feels they are a head injury risk.

He actually advocates against dirty play of any kind. He hates stickwork and is absolutely disgusted by hits from behind. (He's been a major advocate of the "stop sign" program in youth hockey.) In addition he has been calling for the NHL to adopt an automatic icing rule like the NCAA has before someone gets seriously injured racing on a touch up.

I will grant Cherry and the NCAA coaches that there seems to be a much greater tendency in the NCAA than the NHL for the sticks to get high, especially in the scrums. Now, I haven't seen many AHL or CHL/OHL/WHL games lately, so I can't really comment on the minor and junior leages.

Addressing hard elbow pads, I believe they are still a good idea. While they may create more opportunities for head injuries, it takes an elbow to cause an injury, not a pad. Eliminating dirty elbows will do better than changing pads.

Additionally, my personal experience with the softer foam pads is they blow. This year I injured a major nerve (ulnar) in my left elbow, probably from a hockey fall. Surgery was required to fix it. Noted, this happened after my switch to softer elbow pads. Come next season, though, I'm chaning back to the hard plastic kind, if for my benefit alone.

Also, was McSorley after the whistle? And as I remember it was from behind and had nothing at all to do with the game play.

I think the McSorley incident was during play, but nowhere near it.

Cherry's the Bob Dornan of hockey. He's a moron, but he's incredibly funny. He actually had A Brief Moment of Sanity a couple of years ago when he came out full bore in favor of automatic icing -- it shocked the hell out of everybody since he's usually ranting about deporting Europeans or The Original Six or whatever.

IIRC, and I probably don't, the McSorley Incident actually caused the stoppage, and hence was during play. It was miles behind the play, in any case.



Post Edited (04-30-03 04:55)

I didn't even see what the big deal was about the McSorley play. Yes, it was a high-stick. Yes, it should have resulted in a game DQ and maybe, if the league was adopting a get-tough attitude, a short suspension becuase McS was retaliating because Brashear had beat his ass earlier in the game, IIRC.

But the stickwork didn't cause Brashear's injury. Brashear got hurt becuase his helmet fell off as he fell backwards, and his head smacked against the ice.

The whole thing was blown out of proportion and the criminal prosecution was a travesty.

Whoa now

Brashear definitely was unconscious as he fell to the ice, as a result of the hit. The hit itself knocked off the helmet!

Grant MacIntyre '05 wrote:

Whoa now

Brashear definitely was unconscious as he fell to the ice, as a result of the hit. The hit itself knocked off the helmet!

I always looked to me like the helmet came off because of the traditional loose chinstrap in the NHL, not the impact of the hit. And it also looked like Brashear just lost balance a la Aaron Kim.

If you are right, what follows from my assumption would be revised to be, shall we say, more human. The prosecution was still a travesty, though



Post Edited (04-30-03 14:57)

Yeah, that's like saying if someone dies from complications due to surgery for a gunshot wound, the person who shot her/him didn't commit murder. Um, his helmet wouldn't have fallen off otherwise. Do you see a lot of other instances when guys' helmets have just fallen off, other than when punches are being thrown? People need to be held accountable. There is no place for that in sports. Just like those stupid baseball fans need to be held accountable. Otherwise it's not gonna stop.

Jason wrote:

Yeah, that's like saying if someone dies from complications due to surgery for a gunshot wound, the person who shot her/him didn't commit murder.

Yeah, it's exactly like that! Death by gunshot due to complications from surgery is often a lesser charge than murder (manslaughter, anyone?) because intent is absent, and the fault can be spread around.

I noted that the whack to the head was the precipitating cause of the injury in my own recollection of the incident, but I disagree about how much of the blame for the injury can be attributed to McSorley. Given the accepted norms for contact in hockey, the difference between the highlight reel hits and the McSorley chop are not equivalent to the difference between 2 minutes for roughing and an assault prosecution, regardless of the extent of the injury. Do people need to be held accountable? Yes. But that isn't our debate. The debate is over what "accountable" means.

You disagree with me? Fine, feel free to do so. But I didn't treat the topic childishly, using reductionist analogies and hyperbole to make my point. You should do the same.

I don't think the analogy was childish. It may have been ill-chosen. Here's a better one. You and I are walking along a path in pitch black darkness. I club you over the head. You fall over and we happen to be on a bridge spanning a chasm. The ensuing drop kills you.

Am I guilty of murder one? Probably not.

Am I going to jail for a loooooooooooong time? You betcha.



Post Edited (04-30-03 17:27)

I've seen Brashear's helmet come off several times this year, from much lesser hits than the McSorley hit. His helmet seems to come off much more than other players.

Contributing negligence

JH

Greg wrote:
happen to be on a bridge spanning a chasm

But Brashear didn't "happen to be" anywhere. They were exactly where you would expect to find those two folks when analyzing the expected results from a bonk on the head. On the ice at a hockey game.

Let's remember exactly where I am coming from, because it isn't that McS should get off without punishment:

Whack to the head = bad.
Call for permanent suspension = overreaction.
Criminal prosecution = obscene.

b.r.a.,

You missed the point.

The point is that Jason called you on your opinion and you retorted by calling him childish, when rather than being childish he was disagreeing with you and legitimately pointing out problems with your position. The main point of Jason's argument: that a person who sets in motion a series of actions through intent and that series can be expected to result in serious injury AND that action does result in series, is liable for punishment for the result of the action, is not hyperbole -- it's an acceptable hypothetical example.

But let's go on and look at your position, which is looking worse and worse by the minute. "Happened to be" happened to be the best I could do to salvage your position: what if McSorley could not have known the extreme result of his action. But you reject that, so now your hole is much deeper: Given that McSorley knew exactly what could have happened to Brashear, what is the exceptional quality that separates his action from that of any street mugger?

There is only one exceptional quality: hockey is a very rough sport and the level of contact permitted within the rules is far higher than the level of contact for society at large. You and I are walking along and you are eating a sandwich. I want the sandwich, so I bang you into the wall with my shoulder, grab your sandwich, and run off in the opposite direction. In society, that's assault. In hockey, 3000 witnesses see the whole thing and applaud.

But the standard of permissible violence is not infinite. I get mad at you and cleave your head neatly in twain, not even bothering to dig through the resulting pile of ooze and brains for the puck? I don't care how high the standard of acceptable violence is in hockey, that's a felony, almost certainly even in your opinion. So there are limits on the exceptions permitted within hockey. Maybe the graph of violence to punishment is y = x in hockey and y = 2x in society, but even though the curve is less steep in hockey it isn't assymptotic: eventually you hit the y = C line where you leave the penalty box and enter the criminal courts.

In the opinion of many of us, McSorley was close to being offsides on that line.



Post Edited (05-01-03 12:22)

Greg wrote:

There is only one exceptional quality: hockey is a very rough sport and the level of contact permitted within the rules is far higher than the level of contact for society at large. You and I are walking along and you are eating a sandwich. I want the sandwich, so I bang you into the wall with my shoulder, grab your sandwich, and run off in the opposite direction. In society, that's assault. In hockey, 3000 witnesses see the whole thing and applaud.

Shouldn't that be a biscuit instead of a sandwich?

I'm laughing my ass off imagining Tyler Kolarik with a sandwich in the middle of the ice and Murray bashing him to the wall, getting the sandwich and eating it.

Of course, the sandwich must be fish related in this incident, so I'm going to go for Tuna.

[Q] In hockey, 3000 witnesses see the whole thing and applaud. [/Q]

Only 3000? You're either talking about Lynah or the Meadowlands

Greg wrote:

[Q]But the standard of permissible violence is not infinite. I get mad at you and cleave your head neatly in twain, not even bothering to dig through the resulting pile of ooze and brains for the puck? I don't care how high the standard of acceptable violence is in hockey, that's a felony, almost certainly even in your opinion. So there are limits on the exceptions permitted within hockey[/Q]

And yet fighting is "permitted" and, more importantly for this topic, fighting should be expected, and it most often happens away from the puck and has no relation to the actual game. Are you saying then that if one player instigates a fight against another, depending on the damage he causes the instigator might be liable for a crime?

If in the middle of a fight a player takes his stick and rams it butt-end directly through the opposing player's face mask, sure, that could be a crime.

The scale goes:

(1) Legal play.
(2) Penalizable offenses.
(3) Suspendable offenses.
(4) Actionable (civil) offenses.
(5) Actionable (criminal) offenses.


The rule book gives a solid dividing line between (1) and (2). League guidelines try their best to at least put up guidepoints between (2) and (3). The league and the state have to figure out where the divider between (3) and (4) is. Legal codes again more or less clearly define the standards for (4) and (5). There are some really obvious things that can take place on the ice during a game that would be well within (4) and/or (5) -- Doug Murray whips out a semi-automatic and splatters Nick Boucher all over the end boards -- in other words, things that aren't hockey at all, where the fact that the guys are on skates in uniform means absolutely nothing. Then there are borderline-hockey things where all sorts of factors like intent, probability of injury, etc have to be considered. I think McSorley's is one of those things that's on the cusp between (3) and (4).

If the case came before me in the Hockey People's Court, I would throw out criminal charges but let Brashear sue the pants off McSorley.



Post Edited (05-01-03 17:27)

Greg wrote:

1 The main point of Jason's argument: . . . is not hyperbole -- it's an acceptable hypothetical example.

2 Given that McSorley knew exactly what could have happened to Brashear, what is the exceptional quality that separates his action from that of any street mugger?

3 There is only one exceptional quality: hockey is a very rough sport and the level of contact permitted within the rules is far higher than the level of contact for society at large.

4But the standard of permissible violence is not infinite. . . .
In the opinion of many of us, McSorley was close to being offsides on that line.

1. When the analogy game starts with an act intended to cause injury that results in death, it is hyperbole. (In high school policy debate, my friends joked (only half-jokingly) that every position, regardless of topic, has a prepared argument that includes a causal chain to nuclear proliferation and global annihilation.) I don't concede nor believe that McSorley intended to cause injury. I think he wanted Brashear to turn around for a rematch.

2 and 3. I don't know why you even bothered with 2, since you answered it yourself in 3. Every legitimate check and 5-for-fighting-punch-in-the-face can result in a player banging falling back and banging his head on the ice. It isn't enough that he "knew" that a fall on the ice was a possibility, because his actions were not different enough from what happens on the ice in every game.

4. And this highlights the simplicity of our disagreement. I don't think he was that close. A suspension would have been proper, but involvment by the British Columbia courts (even civil court) is a mistake. Even a lifetime ban would have been a mistake, made more grievous if McSorley were 24 rather than 54 when he clubbed Brashear.



Post Edited (05-02-03 08:41)

Contending that elements 4 or 5 are a consideration is a very slippery slope in hockey or any other sport. Short of bringing and using a non-permitted object into the field of play in order to cause harm, I am not sure of any other examples where 4 or 5 should be considered to be at issue.

In baseball, if a pitcher throws the ball at the head of a batter and he dies or is seriously injured, should the pitcher be prosecuted?

If a hit batsman charges the mound and seriously injures the pitcher (with fists or bat), should he be prosecuted?

In basketball, if someone commits an intentional foul, resulting in serious injury to the other player, should he be prosecuted?

In hockey, if someone intentionally slashes another player and breaks the player's hand, should he be prosecuted?

If someone hooks another player, who falls backwards, loses his helmet and has a concussion for a limited time (or for a long time), should he be prosecuted?

If you start prosecuting players or permitting lawsuits based on actions on the field of play to proceed, the next logical step is to imply some standard of care on the part of on-field officials (or even off-field officials). In other words, if a hockey player announces (or implies) that he's going after a player on the other team, starts a fight, and then seriously injures the other player, can the injured player sue or seek prosecution against the league for not restricting the instigator's access to the ice, or sue or seek prosecution against the on-ice officials for not breaking up the fight sooner?

[q]When the analogy game starts with an act intended to cause injury that results in death, it is hyperbole.[/q]

Not sure why you're persisting in imagining that anybody who disagrees with you is trying to play you. Words like "game" are condescending and distracting. I haven't seen anybody playing rhetorical tricks here, with the possible exception of claiming that a trick is being played.

"Sliippery slope" arguments are why it's easier to buy an AK-47 than cigarettes. In the end, almost everything is a continuum where there's massive social agreement on acceptability or its lack on the edges, with gradations and differences of opinion as you move towards the center. Dealing with ambiguity and trying to design a fair system is the whole trick: there's no immutable truth to be revealed like Michaelangelo's sculpture within.

I'm not sure why you think it's easier to buy an AK-47 than a pack of cigarettes, but even supposing it is, it's only because the right to smoke is not constitutionally implied (and because the gun lobby is more powerful than the tobacco lobby).

As any of the lawyers here can tell you, slippery slope arguments are an important part of how many types of case law have been developed in this country.

But enough about the law.

Greg wrote:

[q]When the analogy game starts with an act intended to cause injury that results in death, it is hyperbole.[/q]

Not sure why you're persisting in imagining that anybody who disagrees with you is trying to play you. Words like "game" are condescending and distracting. I haven't seen anybody playing rhetorical tricks here, with the possible exception of claiming that a trick is being played.

"Yeah" and "um" are more condescending than "game". (Sorry for dragging you back into this, Jason. I admire that you have wisely moved on to less shrill pastures. But Greg and I are apparently fated to duel to the death. Or exhaustion. Or boredom. Though I think we had both previously assumed that we had passed exhaustion and boredom and would just take one last look. . .)

I certainly didn't mean the phrase "analogy game" to be condescending. I don't think that the original analogy (or your chasm analogy) are "rhetorical tricks," just bad logic. The use of extreme analogies is always something of a game. Slippery slope logic isn't completely bankrupt, but it tends to obscure far more than it illuminates if the comparison raises questions not relevant to the original scenario.

"Slippery slope" arguments are why it's easier to buy an AK-47 than cigarettes.

It is easier to buy cigarettes than an AK-47. It is just easier to shoot an AK-47 than it is to find a place to smoke.



Post Edited (05-02-03 15:16)

Though it'd be easier to find a place to smoke if you were holding an AK-47....

McSorely's cheap shot was not after the whistle, but it was with about two seconds left in the game.

With no comment about the other issues presented here, I feel pretty strongly that if a batter charged the mound with his bat in hand and beat the pitcher to death, he should be prosecuted. There's no reasonable way that could happen (as opposed to a bat flying out of a batter's hands on a swing). As for the ball hitting a player in the head, well, that happens all the time, and intent is a hell of a lot harder to prove. Even Clemens' excuse for the broken bat toss at Piazza ("I thought it was the ball" is about a thousand times more believable than any excuse for a hitter charging the mound and beating the shit out of a guy with his bat.

Just trying to support these tangents, that's all.



Post Edited (05-05-03 17:23)