Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

This new head shot rule may have been long overdue, but give the GMs credit. They got it right.

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Mark it down: March 10, 2010.

It was on this day that the National Hockey League took its foot off the macho gas pedal of all-out combat, and told its players that it’s OK to tap on the brakes once in a while, when a hit starts looking like it might be a little too dangerous.

Now, how long until we see the first Matt Cooke or Colby Armstrong bear down on a first-liner from the other team, then suddenly pass the hit up?

That’s one we’ll have to see to believe, because culture shifts don’t happen over night. And this is a major culture change inside the National Hockey League.

“Yes,” confirmed the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Brian Burke. “Now, if you’re the hitter you have to make a choice. You can still hit that guy, but you can’t target his head. And sometimes, you’re just going to have to avoid the hit altogether.”

So, does that mean there are players who will no longer be of use to their teams, starting next season when this rule is sure to be adapted?

“If it does mean that, good,” Burke said. “It’s a predatory act. If it’s a case where this is how a player is making his living, he should be making his living doing something else.”

The language of the rule that emerged from this Head Shots Palooza, disguised as the NHL GM meetings at Boca Raton Beach Resort, reads in two parts:

-- “A lateral, back pressure or blindside hit to an opponent where the head is targeted and/or the principle point of contact is not permitted.”

-- “A violation of the above will result in a minor or major penalty and shall be reviewed for possible supplemental discipline.”

This is the problem that players were not able to solve themselves. Despite ample calls from their peers to show some respect on the ice, the hits addressed by this rule just would not stop coming.

“The hit that pushed the managers over the brink (was) the Richards on Booth hit,” head of hockey operations Colin Campbell said. “Feeling that something had to be wrong from that hit (from) the side. The blindside hit.”

Said old-school New Jersey GM Lou Lamoriello: “It’s something we always thought would take of itself, and players on the ice would take care of situations that maybe shouldn’t occur.”

But it never happened that way, maybe because of the instigator rule, but more likely because there is always going to be a certain quotient of relentless, me-first players who play the game with absolutely no regard for the bigger picture. That not-very-smart guy who exists on probably 15-20 NHL rosters.

The beauty of the work the GMs did here however, is that this rule will not weed out the hard-hitting Chris Neils of the world, who by and large hit from the front. The way Lamoriello’s old Hall of Fame defenceman used to do it.

“Scott Stevens hit north-south. Scott Stevens hit when a player had his head down, but had control of the puck,” Lamoriello said, with some conviction. “So, the Scott Stevens hitting will not be out of the game. That is up-front hitting. What we’re talking about is the blindside where a player is not responsible and could not be responsible for seeing that (hitter coming).”

Even a hit to the head is OK -- as long as it comes from the front. Or, as some GMs were terming it, inside the puck carrier’s “cone of vision.”

There was a palpable sense of relief here after three days of meetings, when the GMs emerged with the knowledge that had tackled what has become hockey’s burning issue. It would have been difficult to walk away from this meeting without a piece of paper that will now go to the Competition Committee -— which meets during the Stanley Cup final -— and eventually will be rubber-stamped by the Board of Governors prior to coming into effect for the 2010-11 season.

But the more they looked at the data, the more deep-rooted the issue became.

“Since you grew up, you always had to have your head up,” said Campbell, a 57-year-old London, Ont., boy who slugged it out for a dozen pro seasons through the old World Hockey Association and five NHL clubs. “You’d get crap from your dad if you got hit while watching your pass.

“We are shifting some of the responsibility from the player getting hit to the player delivering the hit now.”

“The game has changed,” said New York GM Glen Sather, another old dog in a new game. “It is an evolution.”

And a fine one at that.

This rule may have been long overdue, but give the GMs credit. They got it right.