I've been playing seriously since I was a little kid and I've never been tempted to switch to a half shield or nothing at all. Nothing against the many teammates I've had who prefer to wear as little protection as possible–that's their thing. But I've been hit in the face with enough elbows and sticks and pucks, and had enough friends get rushed to the ER to have their lips sewn back together than I think I'll hang onto my full cage.
I like to compare football and hockey because they're both inherently violent sports but they deal with the violence differently (each sport has had its successes and failures on the safety front…). So it helps me to switch up the sport for comparison here: it would be way easier for Denard to see the field without a facemask in front of his eyes, but he would be nuts to go without one. Maybe players wouldn't be so eager to hurl themselves at each other as hard as possible if they didn't wear masks? Seems pretty unlikely. But even if we say that would be the case, there would be so many more broken noses, injured eyes, etc.
Hockey's a pretty conservative sport–I mean it's incredible to me that Craig MacTavish played without a helmet recently enough that I have actual memories of it. I'm sure he and guys like him didn't want to wear helmets because they felt constricted and thought wearing helmets would make the game more reckless. Maybe, but I guess we're sort of past that at this point. BlueDragon, I'd say going to half shields is a step closer to the 20th century than the 21st.
Anyway, The shields do look more professional, no doubt, but shouldn't the schools be looking out for the kids who think they've seen the world but actually have no clue because they're 17?
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I've been playing seriously since I was a little kid and I've never been tempted to switch to a half shield or nothing at all. Nothing against the many teammates I've had who prefer to wear as little protection as possible–that's their thing. But I've been hit in the face with enough elbows and sticks and pucks, and had enough friends get rushed to the ER to have their lips sewn back together than I think I'll hang onto my full cage.
I like to compare football and hockey because they're both inherently violent sports but they deal with the violence differently (each sport has had its successes and failures on the safety front…). So it helps me to switch up the sport for comparison here: it would be way easier for Denard to see the field without a facemask in front of his eyes, but he would be nuts to go without one. Maybe players wouldn't be so eager to hurl themselves at each other as hard as possible if they didn't wear masks? Seems pretty unlikely. But even if we say that would be the case, there would be so many more broken noses, injured eyes, etc.
Hockey's a pretty conservative sport–I mean it's incredible to me that Craig MacTavish played without a helmet recently enough that I have actual memories of it. I'm sure he and guys like him didn't want to wear helmets because they felt constricted and thought wearing helmets would make the game more reckless. Maybe, but I guess we're sort of past that at this point. BlueDragon, I'd say going to half shields is a step closer to the 20th century than the 21st.
Anyway, The shields do look more professional, no doubt, but shouldn't the schools be looking out for the kids who think they've seen the world but actually have no clue because they're 17?