Monday, October 27, 2008

Doug Weight Knocks Out NHL Player



New York Islander center Doug Weight hit Carolina Hurricanes Brandon Sutter so hard that he knocked him unconscious and into the hospital. Many people are wondering if the hit was even legal since the National Hockey League is trying to cut down on hits to the head.

Hockey is all about checking the opponents and hitting other players as hard as they can. This is the main reason people watch this sport. Sutter was looking down at the puck the moment Weight made a clean hit without using his elbows or jumping into it. He would’ve hit Sutter’s shoulder if he wasn’t looking down besides it’s hard to go that fast and be in control of where he hits. I’ve seen the Sacramento State Hornets Hockey Club make clean hits and receive penalties because of it, but that just doesn’t happen very often in the NHL.

The NHL is trying to make “head-checking” illegal and if so will suspend Weight for an unintended injury. Weight was just playing hockey and going after the puck-carrier. If the NHL creates another rule on how the players shouldn’t hit, then many hits will be illegal since they look like a head-check. “High-sticking” could even be mistaken for “head –checking”. Minor calls will become major calls and the fighting in hockey will decrease along with the fans. How will the officials separate the clean hits with the dirty hits if they both hit the head? One may be unintentional and uncontrollable and vice versa. But, they both look the same to the officials because everything happens so fast that lines start to blur.

This is happening in the NFL already with the association creating more and more rules for the sake of keeping the player’s safe and making it a fair game. Football players can’t even organize celebration dances unless they want to pay a fine like the Dolphins and Terrell Owens of the Cowboys. Creating more rules makes the game duller because it’s putting more limitations on what the players can actually do.

Weight isn’t to blame for playing the game right, since Sutter chose to stare at the puck and focus on his advance instead of focusing on his surroundings, which included a charging Weight. Every hockey player knows to keep their head up at all times and always be aware of who is around you. If the NHL decides to make “head-checking” illegal, it will most likely come down to if the elbows are used, how long the player’s down and in the end, how much damage was done to the player.

Hockey is a great sport, but adding more rules will only be the downfall of yet another All-American sport.

1 comments:

Huseyin Aksu said...

If these "safety" rules keep on coming we might as well have no contact in sports and watch grown men play flag football. "Dull" is the right word!