Safety in Youth Ice Hockey: Failure to Manage Behavior & Mandatory Penalties are Needed

USA Hockey has some very good rules to protect our children and players. One failure is they aren't fully followed and they don't clearly address neck and head contact and back checks into the boards. Another failure is the belief the referee is fully trained. The referees  may have experience passing a written test but do they have experience in managing a game? No - yes - no - some. Is that what we want? There is a big difference between knowing what icing is and calling it and identifying players that are out of line. This often falls toward the calls that are most likely to hurt our children and players. Broken bones or concussions are often the injuries.

These injuries can be reduced by creating clearer rules and by better training referees to manage games. Youth ice hockey should not be managed by the discretion and abilities of the referee. Some are great and some stink. How do you know the difference?  Referees (at the youth level) must manage the game as dictated by the rule book. There is a difference. Games should be managed with consistency and that can only be done through clearer rules and mandatory calls.

Clarity allows a referee to say "that was contact to the neck or head, you are done for the game." This is not the NHL. This is youth ice hockey. The players aren't skilled in checking. They all don't know how to manage anger or regulate intense play. They must be taught. Clear rules for head hits, neck hits, and boarding will teach them. Youth ice hockey has a glitch in taking the rules to the ice. It is us. People. The referees are learning and the players are learning. Learning should not come at the price of injury. The culture of youth ice hockey must change to NO hits as I describe. This is not about intention, accidentally or woops. This is not about was the boy hurt a lot or a little. These factors can't be interpreted with any consistency, different referees (people) will see it differently. Remove our flaw as judges. Make hits to the neck, the head or in the back, immediate game ejections. These penalties should not be open to interpretation. You either did it or you didn't.

Addressing these failures will improve the game for all of our children and reduce injury and harm. Isn't that what we want?