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Well that didn't work

By Bill Berg, 01/15/12, 5:07AM CST

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A brief history of checking from behind

Peabody here. I’m going to have my trusty boy Sherman set the Wayback Machine to 1990 in Colorado Springs. We are going to watch as USA Hockey comes up with a plan to take checking from behind out of hockey.

Alright, so I’m not real sure about the date, and I couldn’t find any history of the actions on the net. I know I’ve got the materials that were sent out somewhere, and the time is pretty close.  But my office is a mess, and it really isn’t that important to have the year right. But the idea is what counts. USA Hockey wanted to eliminate the cowardly and heinous act of checking from behind from hockey, and they introduced new rules to do that.

The plan was to stiffen the penalty for checking from behind, not necessarily on the team, but on the player. The rules were pretty close to how they stand today:

Rule 607 - Checking from behind

(a)    A minor plus a misconduct penalty, or a major plus a game misconduct penalty, shall be imposed on any player who body checks or pushes a player from behind.

(b)   A major plus a game misconduct penalty shall be imposed on any player who body checks or pushes an opponent from behind head first into the side boards, end boards or goal frame.

 So if you check somebody from behind, your team will be shorthanded for the normal period of time, and you will sit out an additional ten minutes for a minor, the rest of the game plus one for a major. You would think that this would be a huge deterrent. As an added reminder, many teams started sewing Stop signs on the backs of their jerseys, just above the numbers. If you see that sign, stop, don’t hit that player.

WIAA hockey is played by rules written by the National Federation of High Schools, not by USA Hockey rules. The Federation was slow to take up the addition of the misconducts for checking from behind, but eventually they were added, so that by now, any high school hockey player has played his entire hockey career under the additional penalty. 

This is the Federation rule:

Checking from behind:

No player shall body-check an opponent from behind. PENALTY: MINOR AND MISCONDUCT. If the check from behind is flagrant or causes the player to crash headfirst into the boards or goal frame, a GAME DISQUALIFICATION penalty must be assessed.

So now both rules are pretty much the same. Any check from behind is a minor and a misconduct, or 2 and 10 in ref parlance. If it knocks the opponent head first into the boards or goal frame then it is a major and a game misconduct in youth hockey and a Game DQ in high school.

So why do we still see checking from behind? Why are there two paralyzed players now over in Minnesota who were both checked from behind? Are the penalties not stiff enough?

I do think that the penalties are stiff enough if they are properly enforced. I do not think they are being properly enforced.

There are several factors leading to this, an article on the right refers to it as the culture of hockey. Let’s start with coaches who don’t like losing one of their better players for that additional ten minutes, so they argue with the ref who makes the call. And let’s not forget the idiot fans who yell “Let them play” (my least favorite phrase in all of sports, but that’s another article) at the ref who makes the call. But ultimately, the responsibility falls on the sympathetic referees who side with the offending player rather than the player who got hit.

But how can a referee legally soften the blow of a checking from behind penalty? The misconduct is mandatory, not optional. Let me introduce you to the easy way out, namely Board-Checking (aka Boarding).

Board Checking (Federation wording):

No player shall check, cross-check, elbow, charge or trip an opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown violently into the boards. PENALTY: MINOR. If flagrant, MAJOR.

Before the stiffer penalties for checking from behind were imposed, boarding was a rarely called penalty. I remember the first time I called boarding, I had to tell the coach and the penalty box guys what boarding was, as they had not seen it called before that.

If you ask a high school player what boarding is, he’d most likely tell you it’s when you check somebody from behind into the boards, but they don’t give you the misconduct, or something to that affect. And he’d be right. Nine times out of ten, in a high school game, if you see boarding called, it is because a player checked somebody from behind into the boards, but “not hard enough to warrant the ten minute misconduct”.

The way I see games being called, what should be a minor and misconduct for checking from behind is being called as a minor for boarding. What should be a major for checking from behind is getting called as the minor. And the only time you see the major checking from behind is when the guy who got hit doesn’t get up. And it’s been this way long enough that the intended bite of the checking from behind has been significantly reduced.

The WIAA sent out a letter to all hockey schools this week with information for Adminstrators, Coaches, Officials, and Players to limit the incidence and effects of checking from behind. Part of the instructions for officials reads:

“When there are checks from behind do not hesitate to make the call—you are protecting all of the players involved.
Penalize players to the fullest extent of the penalty whenever a player goes head first into the boards and/or goal.”

What has happening in Minnesota should serve as a sobering reminder to officials that hockey is a dangerous game made even more dangerous when played outside the rules, and it is their job to enforce those rules. Right now they are protecting the wrong people.

That’s my opinion, and I’d like to hear yours. We’ll leave the comments stream open to all readers, not just registered users, as long as the comments are thoughtful and civil.

links and resources

Forbes Magazine Article about Minnesota events

Minnesota High School Hockey Culture Under Microscope After Two Paralyzing Hits

"Jack's Pledge" aims to reduce risk.

Stepped up efforts aim to prevent the kind of life-changing injury that affected Jack Jablonski. From Minnesota Hockey Hub

Check hospitalizes another teen

Devastating injuries on checks from behind have the game on edge From Minnesota Hockey Hub

It’s time to make sport of hockey safer for all ages

...Those who referee youth hockey games are also coming under fire for not calling enough checking-from-behind infractions and for not issuing stricter penalties.... Elk River Star News

Minnesota State High School League stiffens penalties on violent hits

A brief excerpt: ...Boarding no longer a way out... Officials said they sometimes called boarding instead of checking from behind to avoid the wrath of coaches and parents who objected to players sitting out almost a third of the game.