I Talk About Changing the Youth Ice Hockey Culture...

Cultures are always changing. Change is difficult but the best qualities of the culture tend to remain and get assimilated into the new culture. Do you like to eat? As cultures change, one thing that is commonly passed on, is food and food preparation as well as traditions. The good things stay.

Youth ice hockey culture isn't bad, it just needs a jolt to address safety and adopt best methods to reduce the risk of injury to our children, the players. With minimal effort, a new culture can be formed that has the best of the past and the future. We just need individuals to step forward and make it happen. The hardest part of change is saying... here are the changes, implement them. Once it is done, everything falls in line again and in this case, we just reduced the risk of injuries to kids.

The blindside hurdles are debate, delay, and slow transition. In the case of youth ice hockey, waiting to implement changes keeps our kids at higher risk. We want to reduce risk. The debate is over. We know about concussions. The delay of committees and discussion is over. USA Hockey is in a rule change year and designated 2012 (I believe) as the year checking starts in Bantam instead of Peewee. The hurdle that is in the way is SLOW TRANSITION. We can't stop with the 2012 change and say okay change will happen. It is good but a blindside hurdle still exists. We need to turn our heads and look at it.

There is still the 2010 season and the 2011 season and their is still the huge matter of implementing a teaching program to fully teach the youth players how to check and protect themselves. Teaching should start in the lowest ages and continue through all of youth ice hockey. We can now focus on taking ideas such as the Heads Up Hockey suggestions for teaching safety and get them quickly implemented. Parents need to start talking with their clubs and leagues and be very away of these blindside hurdles: Debate, Delay and Slow Transition. You are not asking for a debate, you can not settle for a committee to look into it and delay, and waiting to next year is not necessary. Now is the time to bring safety changes to your child's team, club, and league.

As a parent, I found no one resists this idea and everyone is interested in safety, it is getting a plan in place to do it that is hard. The reason... Most of the people involved with youth ice hockey are volunteers. Put the idea out their and find other parents that want to help. The barriers aren't people or clubs. The barrier is just getting it organized and implemented. We have to do more then say we want this implemented. We have to be willing to volunteer our time and help the clubs and leagues out. We don't need finger pointers and directors. We need heavy lifting.