Well it looks like the critics have put fighting on the back burner and taken up a new crusade – mandatory visors. They want to make visors mandatory for every player entering the NHL. Visors are currently optional, and some players do wear them, but they are planning to “grandfather” them in, like they did hockey helmet. So if you are in the NHL and not wearing one, you never have to, but every new player joining the league, must. So basically every player will be wearing a visor in ten years time, depending on how stubborn the next Craig MacTavish is (last guy to play without a bucket).
I am, surprise, surprise, completely against it. Just like my stance on taking fighting out of hockey. Stop childproofing the game I love! I understand there is an issue of player safety, and I’m all for it. I don’t want to see things like blind-side headshots, nor do I want to see players swing their sticks like baseball bats. But come on, lets be reasonable; hockey is a fast-paced, physical sport, and there are risks to it. But that’s why I play and love it. I love the risk/reward that the game of hockey offers. If I wanted to cry every time somebody touched me I’d play basketball or soccer.
Look, all I’m saying is that if you don’t like it, don’t play it, there’s always ringette. Leave my game alone! The funny thing is, the large majority of writers, analysts, and advocates that are on the side of light contact, visors, and no fighting, don’t play hockey. I used to have a friend that would say, “If you don’t play hockey, I don’t want to hear your opinion”. I used to think that was a rude, closed-minded point of view, but now I’ve come to think, to a certain degree, he has a point. Sometimes you just can’t fully understand something until you’ve done it. And this leads me to the visor debate.
Safety is the main argument for those in favour of visors. I concede that it would prevent some eye and face-related injuries. It’s not that much of a stretch considering it’s mandatory to wear cages and visors from minor hockey all the way to pro. In minor hockey a player must wear a cage, or a cage and visor combination. In junior hockey a player can opt for just a visor, removing the full or bottom cage. And obviously in professional leagues (or any men’s or adult leagues) a player can wear any of the above, or nothing at all.
What’s wrong with the system we already have in place? The current system assures kids are fully protected, allows teenagers a little more freedom regarding their safety, and allows adults to make their own decision. What’s wrong with allowing adults to make their own decision, you ask? Well nothing, except for the fact that most of them chose not to wear the visor. The reason is that it impedes your vision. The technology these days is good, but it’s not good enough. You might retort, “Well if you play your whole life with a visor, it shouldn’t impede your vision because you would be used to it”. Not the case at all. You don’t wear a visor 24/7 so it’s still obtrusive to your vision when you put it on. And if you don’t play the game, you wouldn’t know that. And if your livelihood depends on your success as a hockey player, why would you want to handicap yourself? And then you might say, “If it’s mandatory for everyone, then it would still be an even playing field”. Really? So the answer is to handicap everyone? Make the league a shadow of it’s former self? What’s next, neck guards? Plastic blades? Full body armour? Bubble wrap?
I want to see the best this game has to offer, and if it comes at the price of a few stitches so be it. Watching a player get stitched up on the bench is something we all used to be proud of, as Canadians, and as hockey fans. And for the record I still am. And I know the players that are passionate about the game would agree, and they still wear their war wounds with pride, as they should. Yes, they do get millions of dollars to sacrifice their bodies, but even if they didn’t, they’d be down at the local rink doing it for free. Some say, “The tough guy, macho thing, is dead. Common sense now reins supreme, and we have ways to get the same result without putting yourself in harms way”. That may be true. And there is nothing wrong with using your intelligence to make calculated decisions. But sometimes you just want to feel alive, do anything for the thrill of victory, or show your team what they mean to you. So you’ll dive and block that shot, crash the net hard, or grab the biggest guy on the ice after he bumped your goalie. Sometimes a guy just wants to be a guy. You say, “That you don’t understand what that means and that its just a cliché saying”. And I say, “If you don’t understand it, maybe hockey’s not for you. Leave it for the guys that do understand”.
