Inching closer to NCAA standards

[chippa13 1844]

http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=369588

A penalty for an illegal check to the head will be assessed for a hit resulting in contact with an opponent's head where the head is targeted and the principal point of contact. The qualifying terms "lateral or blind side" for such hits have been deleted.

A hit resulting in contact with an opponent's head where the head is targeted and the principal point of contact is not permitted. However, in determining whether such a hit should have been permitted, the circumstances of the hit, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the hit or the head contact on an otherwise legal body check was unavoidable, can be considered.

They're getting closer but I think they still have a little ways to go.

[TeamHonda401 54]

It's just changing the verbage of the rule, but I don't think it's going to affect anything on the ice. That is unless the change in wording will provide the necessary leverage to hand out a suspension that the previous wording didn't.

At least they are making strides in the "defining the problem" stage.

[Chadd 916]

If they continue to get phone calls from the operations department telling them the hits were clean and shouldn't have been penalized, the refs will stop calling it. Given how things have regressed post-lockout, that's exactly what I expect to happen.

[ktang 34]

If they continue to get phone calls from the operations department telling them the hits were clean and shouldn't have been penalized, the refs will stop calling it. Given how things have regressed post-lockout, that's exactly what I expect to happen.

Hey, that's what Fraser said happened to him (in his final TSN.ca column for this season)!

[wrangler 157]

http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=369588

A hit resulting in contact with an opponent's head where the head is targeted and the principal point of contact is not permitted. However, in determining whether such a hit should have been permitted, the circumstances of the hit, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the hit or the head contact on an otherwise legal body check was unavoidable, can be considered.

They're getting closer but I think they still have a little ways to go.

How in the world do you go from "is not permitted" to whether it "should have been permitted"? This language is inane and useless. I have no doubt that they had some concept that they were attempting to articulate, but it didn't survive the mind-to-word transfer. I hope they can improve upon this language, or that the TSN article has it wrong.