Flying Sticks And Shutouts

Coming into last night’s game against the archrival New York Islanders, the Maple Leafs desperately needed a victory to maintain their hold on first place in the conference, not to mention, breaking out of their mini two game loosing streak. Playing with much better attention to their defensive game, the Leafs were able to get the win behind twenty-five saves by Ed Belfour. The big line was instrumental in getting the win as both goals were scored with them on the ice. Mikael Renberg broke out of his thirteen game goalless drought by recording the Leafs first goal on a delayed penalty. Gary Roberts put the game out of reach with 2:39 remaining in the third period with a vintage Roberts goal from two feet out on a good set up from behind the net by Mats Sundin.

Perhaps the more important occurrence in last night’s game was the overwhelming amount of sticks that struck people in the face. Six of the nine penalties in the game were for high sticking and there were others that went unnoticed. This is becoming a very disturbing trend in the NHL as more and more injuries, especially ones to the eye area, are occurring as a result of high sticks. Owen Nolan went down with an eye injury a mere thirteen days ago and now already a second Leaf is out with an eye injury. As a faceoff in the defensive zone for the Leafs occurred, Tucker was attempting to get to the point to cover his man when a stick was flung around, striking Tucker just under the eye. Though it did not make direct contact with Tucker’s eye, it was close enough that he was taken to hospital for observation and will sit out tonight’s game in Washington.

It seem as though players are loosing the respect for their fellow players and thus are not making enough of an effort to keep their sticks under control. A high stick is essentially a weapon that can cause serious damage to a player that is struck by it. Five even three years ago, there were not the amounts of high sticking incidents that seem to be occurring and sooner or later, if something is not done immediately, somebody is going to be permanently injured.

It might be time for the mandatory use of visors to be implemented despite the unwillingness of some players to comply. Many players complain that it restricts their vision and prevents them from being as effective as they can be. They say it fogs up or gets spots from water droplets and impedes their vision.

Let us quickly look at some facts here to perhaps prove these arguments to be nothing but poppycock. As of today, the leading goal scorer in the NHL, Rick Nash, wears a visor. The visor certainly does not seem to be causing Nash any problems as he already has twenty-eight goals. In fact, the top three goals scorers, Nash, Kovalchuk and Naslund, all wear visors. Secondly, when goaltenders masks were first implemented by the NHL, the same type of arguments were put forth by stubborn players. “The cage impedes my vision and I can see it out of the corner of my eye. It also makes seeing the puck at my feet really difficult,” said all the stubborn goalies. Now, can anybody imagine goaltenders not wearing helmets today when players can shoot the puck over 100km/h? Probably not. People have to realize that the risk of head injuries from pucks for goalies is not that much higher than the risk of serious eye damage from high sticks for players.

The visor obviously does not give the league’s top players any problems so to say that it does present problems shows nothing but ignorance and stubbornness on the part of the person arguing this. And let us finish with this, it is a lot easier to play hockey looking through fog or past some water spots than it is with one functioning eye.