Opinion: The NHL Neck Protection Mandate Debate Sounds Like Deja Vu

Much of the hockey world made neck guards mandatory, but there's hesitancy for the same rule in the NHL. Adam Proteau says it's just a matter of time.

Over the years, the hockey world has made significant strides in player safety – specifically in implementing effective equipment to mitigate serious injuries.

One of the more recent examples is the advent of mandatory visors. Since 2013-14, the NHL has mandated visors for new players. Though a few veterans still don’t wear one – Toronto’s Ryan Reaves, Dallas’ Jamie Benn and Nashville’s Ryan O’Reilly still aren’t wearing visors – the mandatory visor rule has made it much less likely to suffer a serious eye injury in a game. 

There’s now a new element to player safety following the same pattern of player unease we saw with mandatory visors.

Before we get there, you also have to remember the party line NHLers toed when the greater hockey world decided the time for mandatory visors had arrived. We were repeatedly told that NHL player comfort meant they couldn’t handle making visors mandatory. It was wholly inconvenient, critics of mandatory visors said. Players should have the choice.

But after the mandatory visor rule was implemented, players adjusted. The rule became the norm, and now, it’s hard to imagine an NHL where mandatory visors didn’t exist. The same even went for helmets.

That brings us to the need for neck protection for all players. Following the tragic death of pro player Adam Johnson in a U.K. league game last October, the AHL mandated neck protection for all players. That announcement followed development and amateur leagues, including the WHL, OHL and QMJHL, all mandating neck protection, as did the IIHF.

However, the NHL and NHL Players’ Association have not made neck protection mandatory yet. Even NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly recently defended players’ decisions to not insist on neck guards, saying he understands why players are pushing back and why the proposed rule has yet to become reality.

“They’re the highest level of the game,” Daly said at the recent NHL/NHLPA Player Media Tour. “(They) don’t want to be told necessarily what to do and what not to do, particularly when it could affect performance on some basis. They’re not going to jump into allowing us to make it mandatory.

“(The Players Association is) working constructively with (the NHL) to at least make the players aware of the benefits of protecting themselves better than they have in the past.”

We take issue with a couple of things Daly said. First of all, does anyone really believe neck guards can affect player performance that much? This writer doesn’t. Remember, virtually every NHL player has come through the junior hockey system, and as we noted above, those leagues have mandated neckguards for years now. There is no evidence those neck guards have hampered their play or provided an advantage to players who don’t wear neck guards.

Similarly, when it comes to visors, players adjusted to the new rules, and now, just about everyone has to play while wearing them. This isn’t unlike society’s insistence on seatbelts for cars. Nobody gets to say their driving is somehow affected by seatbelts.

In his recent comments on the subject, Daly noted that most players now wear cut-resistant hockey socks on the ice. So why isn’t there a rule extending that technology to neck guards (and wrist guards)? It all just seems like trying to avoid the inevitable, and that doesn’t make sense to us.

We don’t need another tragedy to push this issue across the finish line when we all know the issue is heading in that direction and only in that direction. Some day – likely soon – neck guards will be a part of every level of hockey, and players will be safer for it. It is that simple, and no amount of hesitance should prevent it from taking root throughout the hockey universe.

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