Our view: Hockey needs culture shift to promote safer play
The check was described as neither severe nor malicious. But it was illegally from behind and into the boards, and it had no place in a Minnesota high school hockey game. Also, it was nasty enough to leave Benilde-St. Margaret’s sophomore Jack Jablonski in the hospital.
- Jack Jablonski
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The check was described as neither severe nor malicious. But it was illegally from behind and into the boards, and it had no place in a Minnesota high school hockey game. Also, it was nasty enough to leave Benilde-St. Margaret’s sophomore Jack Jablonski in the hospital, paralyzed. It was a check that saddened, shocked and rocked Minnesota’s sizeable, yet tight-knit, hockey community.
How could this happen?
Only then it happened again, in Winona, before the numbness from that first incident had worn off. This time the player knocked into the boards was able to get up and retaliate, no doubt fueled by what had happened just a few days earlier. A bench-clearing, all-out brawl erupted behind the net. Ten players had to be ejected.
What’s going on here?
Before the question could even be addressed, a third hockey tragedy struck the Hockey State. A day after Winona, Jenna Privette, a senior for St. Croix Lutheran High School in West St. Paul, was checked from behind and into the boards. Like Jablonski, she crumbled to the ice, had to be taken to the hospital, and was left unable to walk. Checking isn’t even allowed in girls’ games, according to Minnesota State High School League rules.
OK, something has to be done.
Response was swift and, by all accounts, well-placed and good-intentioned. The players’ families received an outpouring of support, including on Facebook and CaringBridge. High schoolers across the state, including here in the Duluth area, wore white one day to show their support. The Minnesota State High School League — which long has been joined by Minnesota Hockey, USA Hockey and others in calling for better equipment, more-effective coaching and rule changes to make the game safer — ripped out a memo to coaches, officials and players. The league said it was time to “emphasize proper contact techniques.” And late Saturday, the league announced stiffer penalties for checking from behind and boarding.
To that end, the Minneapolis youth hockey association, the “Minneapolis Storm,” launched a website where players from across the state and country could go to sign a pledge to play safe. “Jack’s Pledge” (jackspledge.com) was created as a tribute to 16-year-old Jack Jablonski.
“I play the body to play the puck,” promise players who sign the pledge. “I do not hit to hurt. I do not board. I do not cross-check. I do not check from behind. Ever.”
The pledge is a grass-roots movement without any enforcement power. But it can spark conversations that obviously are needed about how the game is being taught, coached and played in Minnesota and beyond. Don’t believe such conversations are necessary? Consider that hospital visits as a result of hockey violence have doubled in the past decade, according to a statement distributed at a press conference late last week in which Jablonski’s family called for changes to make youth hockey safer.
“Jack said this morning, ‘Mom, it’s not about the hitting, it’s the way we hit,’ ” Leslie Jablonski said at the press conference, according to a news report. “We need to teach people how to hit properly. We’re not trying to take that out of the game. There are ways to do it safely.”
Changing the culture of hockey to make the game safer falls to parents, coaches and players all working together and reconsidering a sport that long has accepted enforcers and fist-fights as normal, natural elements of the game.
Two tragedies, one brawl and increasing visits to the hospital scream otherwise.
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