To the Editor,
Why did hockey adopt helmets, if not to prevent head injury?
An injury we now know happens regardless of wearing any protective headwear because the brain still sloshes around in and bounces off the inside of it’s own “brain-bucket”— the human skull.
So why can’t we get it through that thick homo sapien skull that banning fighting and “enforcing” in hockey would prevent potentially career-ending, let alone life-threatening, concussions?
Putting aside concern for players’ well-being, banning fighting could mean that, except for goalies and unless they chose to, players would only have to wear helmets to protect their noggin from pucks.
Providing a cost-saving for teams’ equipment managers on one end, just think of the marketing possibilities on t’other end when players wanting something to keep their heads warm on the ice sport their “team touque”, which fans across Canada will then clamour for. Fans that will be returning to support hockey, in droves, once fighting is banned.
Has anyone ever taken a poll of how many fans dropped hockey when the NHL decided ‘dropping the gloves’ was “a part of the game” of hockey?
Best of all, I look forward to a return to the days when helmets didn’t make everyone look the same (especially to TV-viewers) but fans could better see their hockey-heros handsome faces (or the likes of Bobby Hulls blonde curls) as they blazed down the ice, skillfully stickhandling a bouncing puck.
Oh yes, I’d be going back to watch a game I’ve been missing ever since they adopted helmets.
Ban fighting, puleeze!
Liz Stonard,
Port Alberni
