Today's Boston Globe has Smith's comments (article by Bob Monahan), they
are:
1) Eliminate contact along the boards.  "It's all right to brush against
each other because that's just incidental contact.  Anything else should be
a penalty".
 
2) Have players remain onside during line changes.
 
3) Install a red line and make two line passes illegal.
 
He goes on to give the standard talk about how today's players are bigger
and faster and more shoulder and knee injuries are occuring, he then says,
"...I think most of it is not open-ice hitting but hitting next to the
boards.  And I don't think that's a skill part of the game".
 
Personally I am against eliminating all board checking.  Are they going to
paint a line around the perimeter of the ice next to the boards as a sort of
DMZ?  We have had discussions on this list over and over again about certain
rules and whether they have had a positive or negative impact on injuries,
i.e. full/half/no shields.  I share Coach Smith's desire to eliminate
serious injury, but, hockey is a contact sport, serious, even fatal injuries
will always happen, and I don't think these rule changes will make much of a
difference.
 
As some one else noted, the player from Suffolk U. crashed into the net.  In
addition to that, he probably should not have been playing.  There was an
article in yesterday's Globe where the player himself said that he was
advised against playing when he first broke his neck.  He even quit after
his first comeback because he got scared, and then he decided he couldn't
stay away from the game anymore, and he returned again.  I'm not trying to
judge his decision, only to point out that this injury, was not going to be
prevented by the above rule changes, or really by any rule that wouldn't
completely ruin the game of hockey.
 
I think the rules on hitting from behind have done a lot, and those should
continue to be enforced without any leniency.
 
Dave
(go BU)
 
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