Oh Just Get Rid of Touch Up Icing Already

For such a racist troglodyte Don Cherry sure makes sense some times. In his latest installment of Coach's Corner on Hockey Night in Canada Cherry berated the NHL for keeping in place the icing rule.

It's hard to disagree with him. With hockey players faster and stronger than ever allowing them to race down at top speed down the ice to touch a puck seems pointless in the new NHL. It's no longer a question of aesthetics anymore. Rather it's become a question of relevance and above all health.

Over the last few years several NHLers have been injured chasing down the puck on an icing play. Think Marco Sturm and Al McInnis. Some of these injuries have been gruesome and could have ended some careers. He is absolutely right that we are one step removed from seeing a player leave the ice on a stretcher with a grave injury.

There is something to be said of the possible slowing down of the game if the NHL removes touch up icing but this should be secondary to the overall health of the players.

Here's the thing. The NHL thinks touch up icing is exciting. Some people think this is an integral part of the game. Maybe. But sometimes life changes and sports need to evolve like anything else. They want to tinker with all sorts of stuff like making the nets bigger but won't do what's right for the health if its players.

However, as Cherry points out, what will it take? Someone to get paralyzed? Heaven forbid, for a player to die? I don't know why they don't consider it.

It's a simple task, compared to trying to stamp out all the fighting that littered the game for so long. The NHL is sensitive to its image in the United States and feels that fighting tarnishes the game. I have both sides of the argument and quite frankly both are right. However, for me personally there's nothing wrong with the occasional good old-fashioned fight at the good ole hockey game. What was bad for the game was gratuitous, WWF fighting style fighting that was taking place in the years leading up to the lock out. Those cartoonish Tie Domi fights are all but gone now. Thanks in part to the absurd instigator rule. But that's another story. Suffice to submit that the instigator rule may have discouraged fighting but it has not solved the impulse to fight. That's why it's a bad rule. It really only sweeps things under the rug.

Article Author: Alessandro Nicolo

Alessandro Nicolo is an obtuse freelance writer living in obscene obscurity.

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