At the risk of being lectured to again by Mike, I'd like to expand on the questions I posed yesterday and to thank Leigh for the response on the subject. Those were exactly the sort of comments that we need here. It's a question of mechanics. There are proper mechanics for skating, proper mechanics for shooting, proper mechanics for hitting, and proper mechanics for taking a hit. For the latter, conventional wisdom has it that if you know you're going to be drilled, to get right on the boards or well off them. Don't ever take a hit in "no-man's land" if you can possibly avoid it. And the conventional wisdom is not really any secret. It's been embedded in hockey culture since they invented boards. What I haven't heard much of is how to *deliver* a hit when the target is just off the boards. What is currently being taught? Is that situation highlighted as a special case (I suspect not)? If not, doesn't it need to be? Does the approach need to be angled (that last step), does the checker need to square up to the target (rather than shoulder to target) in this situation, or what? Notice too that the players know quite well that the 3 - 6 foot range from the boards is a dangerous area. Once in a while you will see a potential target go to the ice to avoid the hit when he is right along the boards. I don't think that I've ever seen that when the target is just off the boards, however. Players know that can break necks. Regarding equipment, it wasn't clear from the footage shown by CBS of the Roy accident that the cause of the injury was purely a compression impulse. If so, yes, there is probably nothing that can be invented that will protect from that. My point, however, was that there is virtually no equipment available that will protect against neck injuries of any kind (unless you want to count those little collars that the kids wear and which are so uncomfortable that they are discarded at an age as soon as the rules will permit). I don't think, though, that just because there is nothing available that that is the last word. We can be a lot more creative than that. -- Dick Tuthill HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.