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What is your over/under on how many penalties -- and suspensions for reckless hits -- will be disputed next season by players and coaches protesting their innocence with these words: "He was just finishing his check."
Those words have become the bane of our sport's existence. What would you say if I told you that it's this type of play that makes me shudder in fear? No, I haven't gone soft. I like a good, clean check as much as anyone and I think it still has a place in the game. However, I think many players and coaches misunderstand what a body check is intended to do. We don't coach young players adequately on how and when to deliver a check, nor are players coached sufficiently in how to receive a hit. Too many young players rise through the ranks -- some all the way to the NHL or other pro leagues -- without knowing the fundamentals from either a technical or philosophical standpoint.
Two key principles have been lost through the years and have yet to be rediscovered:
1) The purpose of a body check is to separate an opponent from the puck, not to separate his head from the rest of his body, and
2) You can't "finish" a check when you haven't
started a check. In other words, unless you have an angle to ride someone out of the play legally -- which was how I always understood the concept of checking when I was playing and actively officiating -- it's not going to be a legitimate hit.
We are playing with fire. I've lost count of the number of tapes I've reviewed over the years for dangerous checks from behind and players deliberately targeting the heads of other players. I am so fearful that someday we are all going to be standing at some Hospital lobby waiting for the parents of a player who is hovering between life and death, completely paralyzed, never to rise again.
As a hockey parent, I am totally fearful every time my own two boys play that they will be driven from behind into the boards by some hero who thinks he is proving something or another. I tell my own guys that when they go in, go in strong, with strong feet and be prepared to get hit from someone who has either never been coached properly or just doesn't care. I tell my sons, Max and Mccauley, especially when it's late in a game, to go in shoulder-to- shoulder with their opponent and don't let them get behind you.
Listen, I'm no Chicken Little screaming about how the sky is falling. I directly deal with matters of discipline and officiating. I watch many hours of film, I watch countless hits that span the gamut of borderline to disgraceful. Every time I sit and watch, I, while silently praying, count down and wonder if our luck and time to fix this problem is running out.
Before every season, I pray silently that THIS will be the year that hockey globally starts to do more than paying lip service to the issue. In my head, though, I know that as long as "finish your check" comes above "know how and when to deliver -- and receive -- a check," we'll have players recklessly delivering dangerous hits and others who unwittingly put themselves into vulnerable positions because neither has been taught any better than that. This is a coaching issue above an officiating and Rule Book one.
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A Class of 2018 inductee to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games. Today, Stewart is the director of hockey officiating for the ECAC. Visit his official website at YaWannaGo.com.
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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