ShareThisMike Peca will admit it: Early in his NHL career, when it came to hitting and concussions, he was the one who played hard and fast and wasn't overly worried if the opponent he'd just hammered in the head needed help getting off the ice.
Then it started happening to him -- the head shots, concussions and all those lingering effects -- and now he has a different view on what has become the primary safety issue among the NHL's more than 800 players.
"Once you receive a couple (of concussions), it kind of changes your perspective on what the rules should be in the game," the veteran Columbus Blue Jacket said. "In our game, a lot of stuff is reactionary, but there are a lot of hits where guys have plenty of time to make a decision ... should I check the puck back or should I pulverize this guy regardless of the position he's in? And far too often, it's the latter."
While many in and around the game vigorously debate the merits of fighting after the death of senior hockey defenseman Don Sanderson, the majority of NHL players are concerned with how to reduce the number of head shots that have crumpled the likes of Patrice Bergeron, Simon Gagne and Andrei Kostitsyn, to name just a few.
For this season, the National Hockey League Players' Association's director of player affairs, Glenn Healy, helped produce a video that was shown to every team. The video detailed a number of head-checking incidents, including many where the attacking player chose not to go after a rival caught in a vulnerable position.
Watching the video got a lot of players talking.
"Some guys intentionally go for the head shot, but I think its bad karma," Vancouver Canucks forward Darcy Hordichuk said. "You know, what goes around comes around. I try not to hit anybody when they're in a vulnerable position, and I'd hope that guys respect that with me if I'm ever in a vulnerable situation."
"There's no place for it," Eric Nystrom of the Calgary Flames added. "You've got to put yourself in the other guy's position."
Along with the video, the players were presented with a questionnaire that included this query: Should there be a rule to deal with head shots? The survey results were still being tabulated as of Friday at the NHLPA's Toronto head office, but Healy was certain he knew what they'd be.
"I have no doubt the players will vote to have some sort of rule to deal with head shots. No doubt," he said. "They'll adapt in a huge way."
Adapting is something NHL players do when they're certain a rule is necessary and will be enforced from the drop of the puck in the exhibition season until the Stanley Cup is presented in June. Convinced that hooking and holding would indeed result in a penalty, the players have begun keeping their sticks down and away. As former NHL player and concussion victim Pat LaFontaine noted: "If we can see a guy not hook like before, then we can train players not to hit each other in the head. Nobody's to blame for this, but everyone is responsible."
That all-encompassing group has been steadily increasing the NHL's concussion count. According to data collected for a sports concussion symposium held in New York last November, 759 NHL players have been diagnosed with a concussion since 1997. In the 2006-07 NHL season, players with concussions missed a total of 760 games, "an increase of 41 percent from 2005-06," according to the report.
At last weekend's concussion summit in London, Ont., Dr. Ruben Echemendia, the director of the NHL's neuropsychological testing program, said there is one concussion in every 15 games in the league.
To counter the trend, the players know there's more involved than simply punishing the attacker.
"The greatest way to minimize the risk is to make sure the puck carrier is more aware of his surroundings," Peca said. "There are guys in this league that you can't hit no matter how hard you try and it's because they know how to protect the puck and they know how to receive the puck and get in a position where they're not vulnerable. I think that's where the greatest information can come from."
So how would a new head-shot rule take shape? Technically, the players' wishes are put to their competition committee, then passed along to the NHL's competition committee. What the league decides is then carried out on the ice by its officials making the calls.
The most likely scenario is that a deliberate head shot would result in a five-minute major and a match penalty. Stephen Walkom, the NHL's director of officiating, insisted the referees and linesmen are open to whatever the NHL wants and noted, again, how players can change their ways when properly motivated.
"We highlight when they don't respect one another," Walkom said. "We don't highlight what they are doing. It's rare now to see a player jab his stick (into the skates of another player) on an icing. ... I think we have a great game now, but it doesn't mean you don't fine-tune it."
As Healy insisted, the issue of player safety deserves no less.
"If there's a stone unturned, I'm going to turn it over to see if there's a better way to protect the players."
(Globe and Mail reporters Eric Duhatschek and Matthew Sekeres contributed to this story.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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