Hockey Headshots Need a Rugby Cure

Rugby's reforms show how the NHL can protect players without losing the game's spirit.

The NHL seems to like the fighting and rugged play that go along with hockey, and even the threatened career of Sidney Crosby, one of its best players, doesn’t seem to be moving the NHL to change its ways. Commentators, players, and fans express concern each time a horrendous injury results from a hockey fight or vicious play, but hockey officials – particularly NHL commissioner Gary Bettman – just wait for the noise to subside.

Hockey officials seem to be concerned that the game will lose its “tough” image, or that it will be stripped of its “manly” qualities if fighting is restricted.

Perhaps the NHL should look to rugby for some solutions.

Since the dawn of rugby’s “professional” era in the mid 1990’s – when people began to make a living playing the game – its athletes have become bigger, stronger, and faster, as has been the case in most professional sports. At the same time, rugby itself has become faster and harder.

In recent years, the Dublin-based International Rugby Board (IRB) began to look at the risks the modern game presented to its players. Finding that those risks were too high, it began to change the rules – both to protect the players from unnecessary injury and to make the game more enjoyable to watch. The IRB made the following amendments to the rules:

• It regulated the use of equipment to prevent players from wearing hard shoulder or head protection, equipment that they regarded as causing more injuries than it prevented. Now, only soft “scrumcaps” and shoulder-protecting vests are permitted.
• It outlawed mid-air tackles, and instead ruled that a player could only tackle an opponent who was on the ground.
• It ruled that, when tackling, players must attempt to wrap their arms around their opponent. This change was aimed at eliminating the shoulder charge or rolling cross-body block that is so popular in the NFL and NHL.
• It banned the so-called spear tackle (where one player picks up another and aggressively forces him or her to the ground).
• It outlawed any form of hitting above the shoulders, thus eliminating neck tackles and headshots.
• And it gave the referee the latitude to penalize any act of gratuitous violence.

Rugby uses in-game penalties that are familiar to hockey: a yellow card warrants a ten-minute seat in the “sin bin;” and two yellow cards in a game result in a red card, which signals elimination from the rest of the game. A particularly harsh violation can also result in a player being given a red card with no prior warning. Each rugby league and the IRB can tack on additional penalties – including suspension from any number of future games – according to the severity of the violation.

Professional rugby remains a rugged and hard game, as tough as any sport. By being attentive to its players and fans, the IRB has successfully changed rugby’s rules without losing the essential vigour and appeal of the game. Rather than being “wussified,” as some fear hockey would be, rugby has remained a test of physical courage and stamina, but no longer puts those who play it at undue risk.

The NHL could learn a thing or two from rugby’s experience.