Please ignore this tangent off the main thread unless it interests you.
 
John Munson makes the following comments:
 
> > second place in early returns for Best Check of the Year (both HARD, clean
> > hits).  After his first-place hit, the coaches just said, "Wow!" but the
> > clincher came when a ref was next to the bench for a faceoff and said, "That
> > hit belongs on Don Cherry's Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Hockey."
> >
>
> They let 8 and 9 year olds check out east?  Pardon me, but that sounds pretty
> dumb, and merely adds fuel to the fire being started by those who want to
> remove checking from ALL youth hockey.
 
The vast majority of youth hockey (even in the east) does NOT allow checking
until the kids hit PeeWee age, which is roughly 11-12 years old.  This is
consistent for all AHAUS teams.  However, there is another league in the
Greater Boston area called the Metro Boston Hockey League.  This league is
full check and full slapshot.  There are no "B" or "C" teams in this league.
It consists solely of 12 or so teams that conduct tryouts each spring.  The
talent level is quite high in this league.  The typical Metro team would
beat the typical AHAUS "Select" team even playing under AHAUS rules.  THe
Jr. Terriers, Jr. Eagles, and Jr. Chiefs are three of the teams in the Metro
league.  Unlike AHAUS leagues which cover two-year age groupings, Metro teams
have one-year age groupings, so even though play is physical, kids are not
being checked by kids nearly two years old than they are.  Also, kids who
don't want to play checking hockey, just play for their town and select teams.
 
 
> Excuse me while I move my soapbox to a better position <sound of box being
> moved>...
 
> Kids that age need to learn how to skate and handle the puck -- not hit.  That
> they can learn later,
 
The fact is that because of the talent level in the Metro league, kids can
typically skate and handle the puck quite well already.  Of course, we always
continue to work on those skills.  The first twenty minutes of Jr. Chiefs
practice is always based on pure skating.  However, since the skill level is
already high, teaching kids to check and deal with being checked are
appropriate skills for them to start learning.
 
> Otherwise, what you develop is a game based on hitting rather than
> skating.
 
Since when are they mutually exclusive?  That makes no sense at all.
 
> Injuries multiply, and the least important aspect of the game of
> hockey, not to mention the ugliest, is emphasized at the expense of the beauty
> of a well executed passing play or a nice move to get free for a shot.  Kids
> learn that thuggery on the ice is rewarded with approval from parents and
> coaches (and apparently even on-ice officials), and so when they take the ice
> for a shift they are looking for someone to hit, rather than focusing on making
> the best play they can.
 
A good, clean check isn't ugly at all.  And it isn't thuggery either.  Those
who feel that way should take up other pursuits, like ballet.  Your clear
implication is that my son was a thug when he made a Cam Neely-style check
and that the adults acted inappropriately.  That's nonsense.  If you're playing
in a checking league and you deliver a perfect check, then that is to be
praised, just like a perfect pass, shot, or backcheck.   FYI, in his game this
past weekend, the single thing he was most praised for was a perfect backcheck
that saved a goal.
 
How can you assume an overemphasis on checking over passing when you've never
even seen a game in this league?  EACH aspect of the game is given emphasis,
with no aspect crowding out the others.  Do the kids love to check?
Absolutely?  Do they love to score?  Absolutely.  Do they love to backcheck?
Well, that's another story....  Again, there is NOTHING mutually exclusive
between clean checking and the other aspects of the game.
 
ANd regarding kids looking to check instead of making the right play, that's
baloney too because many times the check IS the right play.  How many times
have we all heard "Play the body, not the puck."  Defensemen are so handicapped
in no-check leagues that they often pick up bad habits because they aren't
allowed non-trivial contact. If someone has the puck, in most cases a good,
clean check IS the right play.
 
> I don't mean to rant about this, but it's always been a particular hot spot
> with me.  Hitting is a part of hockey.  Good body checking is an art.
 
How did we go from thuggery to an art?  You're not consistent.  (My son went
from a thug to Da Vinci.)
 
> I have
> enjoyed watching my own son deliver a few of those when they were needed.  I
> have always told him, since he first took the ice at age 7, that if I ever saw
> him acting like a goon out on the ice he was all through playing.  I get a lot
> more enjoyment from watching him make a good breakout pass,  hitting one of
> the forwards with a long lead feed that becomes a goal, or scoring one himself.
 
I too enjoy the finesse part of the game and have been especially gratified
to see my son add some one-on-one skills as a result of a camp he attended this
summer.  I love to watch that.  But I also love to watch him deliver great
checks.  He has never injured a kid, because he plays clean.  He HAS, though,
taught a few kids to keep their head up.  He considers his nickname of
"Mini-Cam" to be a compliment.  I do too.
 
I really can't understand your grouping of "being a goon" with clean checks.
There is no place for hitting from behind, dirty stickwork, or buttending.
That's being a goon.  But clean checks are part of being a complete hockey
player.  And the checks I originally wrote about were specifically noted to
be clean, legal checks.  My son is not a goon.  He is working at becoming
a complete hockey player.
 
> But I'm glad that the local rules don't allow for checking below the 12-13 year
> old level (in Canada, they start it even later, I'm told).
 
When we play in tournaments in Canada this DOES put us at a disadvantage.
 
To close, this is just ONE league for highly talented players.  No one forces
any kid to play in it.   Checking leagues DO have the advantage that kids
who are ready to learn checking can do so, defensemen don't spend extra years
picking up bad habits, and forwards learn to correctly keep their head up
when they are skating with the puck.
 
****************************************************************
* Dave Hendrickson                   [log in to unmask] *
*             A Hockey Get-A-Lifer and Proud Of It             *
* GO BROONS!!!      Go Red Wings!      Anyone but the Rangers. *
* GO UMASS-LOWELL!!!       Go Maine!!            Go BU!        *
* Do I like too many teams?  Hey, sue me.  I just love hockey. *
* ------------------------------------------------------------ *
* Although I can't remember ever having an original thought,   *
* and am certainly parroting someone who actually has a brain, *
* these opinions are mine, not Hewlett-Packard's.              *
****************************************************************