Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Losing head shots doesn't make the NHL worse. Losing its top players to the injuries they cause does

Mike Milbury calls it the softening of the game.

The former NHL defenceman and general manager is certainly entitled to his opinion, even if it makes him seem like a caveman. Quite simply, hockey – at all levels – has become a very dangerous game to play. The lack of respect players show for one another is both shocking and appalling. Players now routinely catch opponents in vulnerable positions and go at them like a guided missile.

The NHL’s general managers are gathered in Florida for three days of meetings and two of the topics of discussion will be unsuspecting hits and head shots; you know, the kind we have seen this season with increased regularity. David Booth of the Florida Panthers had his bell run by Mike Richards of the Philadelphia Flyers earlier in the year, and Sunday it was Marc Savard of the Boston Bruins being carried off on a stretcher courtesy of a Matt Cooke forearm shiver to the head. One night earlier Toronto’s John Mitchell was felled by a similar hit to the head from Ottawa’s Chris Neil.

Therein lies the problem. It’s not hitting that needs to be taken out of the game – it’s hits to the head. Plain and simple. Cooke shrugged of Sunday’s hit like it was nothing: “Just doin’ my job.” But as one Pittsburgh writer points out, if the tables were turned and it was a Boston player laying out Sidney Crosby, who was then carried off the ice on a stretcher, the Penguins would be screaming bloody murder.

Even Crosby, who rarely makes waves, said the time has come for change.

“At some point we need a clear cut rule,” the Penguins superstar said about shots to the head.

By the standards that have been established over the years, the Richards, Cooke and Neil hits were perfectly legal. Also, I don’t believe either player purposely targeted the head of their opponent. But neither did they take the proper precaution to not deliver a head shot, and that is what needs to change in the game.

Richards was not suspended for his hit on Booth and Cooke wasn’t even penalized for his hit on Savard. What does that tell you? In a nutshell, head shots are acceptable at the NHL level and since NHL players influence youngsters, it shouldn’t shock anybody that we see many similar incidents in minor hockey.

The NHL’s GMs will not come up with an instant solution in Boca Raton this week. That’s not the way it works in the NHL. Instead, an eight-man committee will come up with recommendations for the NHL’s board of governors who will then consider changes to the rules or the way the current rules are applied. The sooner change comes, the better.

It’s not as though hockey cannot alter the way the game is played. When the NHL resumed after the year-long lockout in 2004-05, the league cracked down on obstruction and the game is better for it. There is a greater emphasis on skill and offence now and the best players are allowed to strut their stuff. Do you think we would see Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin racking up numbers the way the do, or making electrifying plays, in the old system where they would have to battle for every inch of ice they could get? Would little Patrick Kane have been able to win the rookie-of-the-year award if he was mugged every time he tried to get to the net?

If the league can reduce obstruction the way it has, then it can certainly reduce headshots and unsuspecting hits, too.

Players somehow have to be reminded to consider the outcome of their actions. Mike Richards is one of the NHL’s best two-way players and what makes his game special is the physical element he brings to the table. As much as Richards likes to punish opponents, it is highly unlikely that he would deliberately knock a player out of the lineup for two months with a shot to the head.

Unfortunately, players have been allowed to deliver such hits without fear of consequence for too long. Now it is time for the NHL to make an immediate crackdown, just the way it targeted obstruction a few years ago. Don’t take hitting out of the game; take high hits and unsuspecting hits out.

Taking head shots out of the game does not soften the sport. It makes the sport better.