In regard to the full shield/half shield question... First, I think there are several important points which need to be addressed. The rule was made in order to prevent the injuries that result from high sticks. So, if the full shield requirement is going to be removed, it is inevitable that injuries will result unless something is done to counter this rule change - like issuing a directive to referees to enforce the high-sticking penalties. If we do go to half shields, I think it is imperative that this occur. I have been very pleased with the way hitting from behind and hitting after the whistle have sharply decreased with the emphasis placed upon referees to make these calls. I still think that if something similar was done in the area of high-sticking, we would see a drastic change; perhaps it would not be eliminated entirely, but it could certainly be decreased if players were aware that it was going to be called, even if no injury was caused. However, at the same time this does place an added responsibility upon officials to watch for more infractions - but by allowing linesmen to inform the referee of penalties, the chance that such infractions would be missed is less than it was a few years ago. I think the principal concern here is the safety of the players, and that will make it difficult to implement a change to half shields. This isn't pro hockey, after all. I agree with everyone who has posted that something should be done to bring the sticks down, but I would prefer to see an attempt made through stricter enforcement of the rules before we make a change that is going to result in some players being injured. By just going to half-shields, it leaves the impression that we are threatening the players with injury if they don't bring their sticks down. Why not just take the helmets away, too? To what extent do we go to lower the sticks? Also, if a player chooses to wear a full-shield, will he be allowed to? I wish I had included this issue in the poll. My official answer is, as I said, I want to see the rules enforced first before we go to half-shields. That makes more sense to me than forcing the players to endure a "transition period" during which they will be more at risk than players who came before or after them. I don't know whether this *will* work, but I would like to see it at least attempted. To carry this a step further, I suggest that there should be stronger penalties handed out for illegal uses of the stick like high-sticking and cross-checking. Maybe an automatic double-minor for these infractions would be a good place to start. A mandatory misconduct along with the current minor is another possibility, since it has been said that the player should be penalized and not the team, but I think that if players know they will be hurting their teams more by taking these penalties, they will be more likely to abide by than the rules than if they received a minor-misconduct. I might even agree with a mandatory major instead of a double-minor. And if these penalties occur very late in the game, when a major wouldn't hurt a team much more than a minor, add a mandatory DQ. This may preclude the occurrence of stick battles at the end of a one-sided game. But this may raise another problem. Referees are at times known to put their whistles away late in close games; will this prevent them from calling heavily-penalized stick infractions in these situations? That I don't know.