I'm wondering, though, if there might be an undesirable unintended consequence.  If skates are sharper, you not only reduce speed, but you also reduce ability to maneuver.  That takes away one of the advantages a smaller player might have over a bigger player.  So hockey could become even more a "big man's" game, and you reduce the "v" part of the equation, but you increase in the "m" part.

I could live with less violent hitting (and I think that less violent hitting doesn't mean getting rid of the physical part of the play completely), but reducing speed and skating ability would be a sad thing to me.  A youth hockey coach once told me "The object of a body check is to separate a player from the puck, not to separate him from his senses."

--- On Mon, 3/28/11, Hampton, Nathan E. <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


>. . . The real reason players have more concussion
> is because they are skating so much faster than they use to
> which is force (1). TRUE, eliminating hitting will reduce
> concussion. But it is also TRUE that reducing the speed with
> which skaters are skating will accomplish close to the same
> thing. However, the same kind of hit that would at a slower
> skating speed would not have caused a concussion before will
> NOW cause a concussion given the faster speed of the game. I
> fail to see that rules outlawing hitting is equal in glory to rules
> eliminating the speed of skating -- or the degree to which
> skates are sharpened. Reducing skate sharpening and even the
> metal components of the skate blade itself, might be more
> successful at reducing concussions that outlawing what are
> now legal hits. (You heard it here first).
> 
> Nathan Hampton
> ________________________________________
> From: - Hockey-L - The College Hockey Discussion List [[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of J. Michael Neal [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 5:46 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: observations of a weekend couch potato
> 
> Hitting someone whose head is down is fine, as long as you
> don't hit
> them in the head.  Hit them in the head, and it
> doesn't matter whether
> it was down or not.
> 
> There is also a limit to how much helmet technology can
> do.  Concussions
> are caused by the acceleration and deceleration of the
> brain within the
> cranium.  To reduce that, a helmet needs to dissipate
> the energy of a
> hit into something other than motion of the head. 
> From what I've read,
> the medical researchers a fairly pessimistic about how much
> advancement
> there is to make on that.  Momentum, after all, has to
> be conserved, so
> something would have to move along an axis orthogonal (or
> at least
> significantly orthogonal) to the direction of the
> blow.  The sport where
> there has been the most advancement in this is auto
> racing.  The reason
> that it's been successful is that they are okay with pieces
> of the car
> flying in every direction.  Every one of those pieces
> is carrying
> momentum that is not transmitted to the main body of the
> car, and thus
> the driver.  That's why crashes can be so spectacular
> and yet the driver
> walks away mostly unhurt: the car is specifically designed
> to
> disintegrate in those conditions.
> 
> For some pretty good reasons, we are not okay with a hockey
> helmet
> breaking into dozens of pieces whenever someone takes a
> blow to the
> head.  That has the advantage of increasing its
> ability to prevent cuts
> and to protect someone's head when they fall to the
> ice.  Unfortunately,
> it drastically reduces the number of ways you can improve
> its protection
> against concussions.  Mouthguards help by reducing the
> acceleration of
> the initial blow, but don't really do anything to reduce
> the
> deceleration on the other end.  The same is true of
> wearing the helmet
> properly.  So, that can reduce concussions. 
> However, a lot of the blows
> now are hard enough that the deceleration by itself is
> problematic.
> It's the same as a whiplash injury in a car crash, and is
> the reason for
> other safety devices in auto racing which also aren't
> transferable to
> hockey because of the greater need for neck mobility in
> play.
> 
> That is what leaves us with the need to dissipate the
> momentum of the
> blow, rather than just reducing the initial
> acceleration.  The basic
> idea of a helmet is successful at the latter, but not very
> good at the
> former.  Increasing the padding is sufficiently
> inefficient at that that
> we've pretty much maxed out that approach.  There has
> been progress with
> goalies' helmets, and the way that they are now shaped to
> deflect
> incoming pucks rather than to take them flush.  I'm
> not sure what a good
> way to deflect shoulders, elbows and chests is,
> particularly since they
> are likely to come from a much greater variety of angles; a
> helmet
> designed to deflect blows from one direction is likely to
> reduce the
> deflection from others.
> 
> What it will take is some method through which there is
> some mass in the
> helmet that gets accelerated in a direction other than the
> axis of
> impact and does not leave the helmet.  It also can't
> simply transmit the
> momentum back to the head when it comes to a stop against
> whatever
> barrier prevents its ejection unless it spreads that
> secondary impact
> significantly over time.  The closer it comes to
> accelerating on an axis
> perpendicular to that of the impact, the better.  It
> has to be able to
> do this regardless of the axis of impact.
> 
> I'm dubious that this will end up being the answer.
> 
> On 3/28/2011 3:19 PM, Matt Sullivan wrote:
> > I certainly don't dispute that a hit to the head is
> illegal, but unfortunately
> > it becomes such a subjective call for the refs to
> make.  Your original email
> > made it sound like a person shouldn't hit another
> player if their head is down,
> > and I still disagree with that.
> >
> > I'd like to know what Bauer, Easton, CCM, Itech and
> Reebok are doing to advanced
> > helmet technology.  It seems like the design of
> the helmet hasn't changed in 20+
> > years.  Also a factor on head injuries isn't just
> contact but the improper fit
> > of helmets, facemasks and mouthgaurds.  Watching
> yesterday's MW regional I was
> > surprised to see a bunch of masks hanging down an inch
> or more lower than they
> > should.  There's lots we can do to lower head
> injuries without taking the
> > physicality out of hockey.
> >   Matt Sullivan
> > Group Insurance Specialist
> > The Sullivan Agency, LTD.
> > www.sullivanagency.com
> >
> >
> > University of Minnesota Duluth, 1998
> > BU-LL-DO-G-S GOOOOO Bulldogs!!!!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: J. Michael Neal<[log in to unmask]>
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Sent: Mon, March 28, 2011 10:25:06 AM
> > Subject: Re: observations of a weekend couch potato
> >
> > On 3/28/2011 9:32 AM, Matt Sullivan wrote:
> >> Since when can't you hit a player when their head
> is down???
> > Since we started learning just how damaging
> concussions are.  If you derive
> > enjoyment from watching people suffer brain damage, I
> can't stop you.  I,
> > however, have been opting out pretty rapidly.  I
> can't watch NFL football
> > anymore, and I'm losing patience with the NHL. 
> Fortunately, I discovered that
> > women's hockey is a great game, with a much lower
> injury rate.
> >
> > Given how large and how fast the players are today,
> the only way you're going to
> > stop the escalating rate of concussions is to prevent
> hits to the head.  It
> > doesn't matter whether the checked player's head is up
> or down.  Either
> > eliminate those hits, or you'll see a continuing
> parade of players to the
> > hospital.  The research being done on concussions
> in sports is frightening if
> > you care about the players' well being, particularly
> the evidence that an
> > accumulation of blows that do not produce concussion
> symptoms can do serious
> > long term damage.
> >
> >
>