Did anybody catch the OTL piece this morning?

[Jordan 13]

There have been many studies conducted in Canada, and as mentioned earlier we hade the ages lowered for body contact in Ontario and Alberta whie they remained steady in the other provinces.

This gave us real world data that we could compare. We found out the following:

1) whenever you add body contact there are more injuries. It doesn't matter the age that you introduce contact.

2) Despite the idea that an earlier introduction to checking, would allow the players to learn how to do it properly when they are not as big or strong, saving them from increased injury later; it appears not to be the case. There is no reduction in injuries later when checking has been introduced earlier.

As a parent of a kid playing AAA who had a concussion last year, while playing what was supposed to be non-contact hockey I am divided on this issue. My son likes contact, and is pretty good at it, but the evidence is pretty clear that there is no advantage to an earlier introduction to hitting.

That said, my son goes into minor peewee this year and right out of the gate at tryouts the other night there were drills and a scrimmage that were full contact. Bit of a gong show with every kid trying to get in a hit to impress the coaches...but it settled down considerably after a couple of shifts.