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SupersonicMax said:I am for the removal of checking in kids sports. When it is your child laying on the ice, suffering a concussion, you’ll understand.
Maybe or maybe not. My father played junior hockey and filled the role of "enforcer" for a number of different junior clubs. He always encouraged me to finish my hits and play physically.
I've got plenty of injuries from both ice hockey and rugby to back it up and I'm more than certain that combined with military service it will lead to some chronic pain problems down the road.
The problem with removing hitting from a competitive sport like hockey is checking is a fundamental component of the professional game. You don't check, you have no pipeline producing professional players.
Learning checking too late is bad because kids learn bad habits i.e. skating with your head down, cutting inside across open ice, not using the boards to your advantage. I was a defenceman and used to love catching forwards trying to cut inside when I was playing competitively.
Bottom line, if you just want to play hockey for fun, join a league that is non-contact. If you want to play competitively though, with an eye to trying to go as far as you can in the sport, you need to learn to check and you need to learn young because the two games are fundamentally different and it's hard to break bad habits once they start.