Minnesota Hockey Retains More Severe Penalties, Aims for Better Enforcement

Submitted by Hal Tearse on Wed, 06/27/2012 - 03:19. | comments

Minnesota Hockey, the governing body for 40,000 youth hockey players in the state, has voted to continue with the pilot program begun last Janaury that made checking from behind and boarding 5 minute major and 10 minute misconduct penalties. The program was instituted after high school player Jack Jablonski suffered a spinal cord injury from an unpenalized check from behind. The USA Hockey rule book allows for escalating levels of penaly time depending on the incident. That discretion no longer exists in Minnesota in youth or high school hockey.

Minnesota Hockey, the governing body for 40,000 youth hockey players in the state, has voted to continue rule changes enacted last January which stiffened the penalties for checking from behind and boarding and hope for better enforcement.

NFHS Clarifies Rules On Checks From Behind in High School Hockey

In an effort to promote safer play and minimize the risk of head, neck and spine injuries, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) has clarified the rules on checking from behind in high school hockey. The changes seek to stem the rising tide of violence in high school hockey, and come in the wake of several highly publicized catastrophic injuries to players after illegal checks from behind, but is better enforcement the simpler, and better, answer?

Emotional Abuse: Youth Hockey's Dirty Little Secret

The story of the Foglietta family tells a cautionary tale highlighting the problem of emotional abuse. At center ice are 9-year-old identical twins who became the unintended but innocent victims of a real life power play in the adult-centered world of youth hockey.

Buying Mouth Guards

There are three kinds of mouth guards, but, regardless of type, they help prevent injury to the mouth, teeth, lips, cheeks and tongue. But they are also breeding grounds for bacteria, so they should be sanitized daily.

Youth Sports Hero of the Month: John Huether (West Roxbury, Mass.)

When a referee at a JV hockey game in Massachusetts suffered a serious concussion, a coach's act of exceptional sportsmanship set the kind of example for his players they will remember long after their playing days.

Child Sexual Abuse: The Dark Underbelly Of Youth Sports Culture

The Penn State scandal didn’t occur in youth sports. Yet, it is one of the rare occasions that sex abuse by coaches, which is a major problem in youth sports, got the type of national publicity that allowed the problem to penetrate the public consciousness. The big question is whether we as a sports society are up to the task of doing to more to prevent future abuse.

Sarah Burke's Death: A Reminder To Take All Head and Neck Injuries Seriously

Vertebral artery (e.g. whiplash) injuries, such as the one that claimed the life of Canadian freestyle skier, Sarah Burke, can occur to athletes in contact sports, such as football and hockey, and sports where falling is common, such as skateboarding and skiing

Hal Tearse

Jabs #13: Making Youth Hockey Safer In Wake of Jablonski Tragedy

Submitted by Hal Tearse on Fri, 01/13/2012 - 01:27. | comments

While Jablonski's injury was, of course, his parent's worst nightmare, and will change his life forever, such injuries are fortunately quite rare in ice hockey but the publicity, in this instance, has prompted calls for the leaders of youth and high school hockey in Minnesota to demand stricter rule enforcement, better coaching, and more severe penalties for dangerous and illegal "hits" that lead to hockey being a sport with one of the highest rates of concussion.

Longtime Minnesota ice hockey coach Hal Tearse talks about how the catastrophic injury suffered by high school hockey player Jack "Jabs" Jablonski and suggests ways to make the sport safer.

Unmarked Detour: Unprepared Despite Multiple Concussion History

Although her daughter Heidi had suffered multiple concussions in the past (one in second grade during recreational skating, the second more serious concussion in a collision with a softball teammate in ninth grade), and despite thinking she was "concussion savvy," Dorothy Bedford says that, three to four weeks after Heidi suffered a third concussion warming up for an ice hockey game during her junior year in high school, she was unprepared for the "mysterious journey" that lay ahead for both of them.

Unmarked Detour: Long Concussion Journey Begins Before Puck Even Drops

After sustaining a series of hits to her head during the previous week's training, Heidi Taggart asked her ice hockey coach to be excused from goaltending during a game in February 2010 when she began experiencing "flu-like" symptoms. He told her to "suck it up" and take the ice. During pre-game warm-ups, a teammate's stick hit Heidi in the head during the follow-through from a wrist shot. She immediately began experiencing concussion symptoms (headache, disorientation, drowsiness), but the injury was not initially thought to be too serious. It was anything but. As her mom, Dorothy Bedford, now recalls, the road Heidi travelled from that Friday night on the way to recovery from post-concussion syndrome would be marked by a long series of "unmarked detours" taking fourteen months and requiring treatment from more than 10 different medical specialists.

Safety