Josh Anderson Wears Cut Resistant Socks for the 1st Time Last Night (Saves his Season and Maybe Career)

Players get a say in determining this type of rule change now under current CBA. They have not agreed to it yet.

I agree though, they are silly to not agree to this, but hockey players are always funny when it comes to equipment changes and choices.
Professional athletes not understanding they have one of the shortest and most unstable career trajectories while being far more susceptible than the average adult to long-term injury and other debilitating effects of their workplace and refusing to do anything about it is... typical of what I would expect most men who never really get an education past high school.
 
Hockey players almost never voluntarily protect themselves, neck guards and cut resistant socks will have to be grandfathered in just like helmets and visors.

It should be mandatory. Screw the players and their desires. A helmet is mandatory. Basic safety should be mandatory. I don’t know why this is so complicated.

I am under the assumption that the players would not want them to become mandatory, but if they do, then my point is irrelevant. I could also be wrong about this, but this is something that would be subject to negotiation with the NHLPA, meaning that the owners would have to give up something in the negotiation process. Probably nothing major, though, in order to get them grandfathered in. It's unfortunate, but the reality of the situation.
 
Professional athletes not understanding they have one of the shortest and most unpredictable career trajectories while being far more susceptible than the average adult to long-term injury and other debilitating effects of their workplace and refusing to do anything about it is... typical of what I would expect most men who never really get an education past high school.
Many professional hockey players are educated beyond high school and overall, intelligent. I’m not sure why you feel a need to bash or why that’s a statement you needed to make.

My point was that the NHLPA (the players) is partially responsible for this being or not being a rule, as it’s CBA negotiated. Like in any walk in life, you will find a mix of risk takers, libertarians and risk averse.
 
Many professional hockey players are educated beyond high school and overall, intelligent. I’m not sure why you feel a need to bash or why that’s a statement you needed to make.

My point was that the NHLPA (the players) is partially responsible for this being or not being a rule, as it’s CBA negotiated. Like in any walk in life, you will find a mix of risk takers, libertarians and risk averse.
As someone who has worked extensively with NHL players and have had countless face-to-face interactions with them, I will disagree.
Some may chase higher education over time, through remote learning programs or other course deliveries, and others may go the college route. Most are not what I would call "educated"; if you were to pit a group of NHLers versus a similar group of standard college-educated persons, I believe you would see a measurable difference in ability - and I'm also willing to pitch in the fact that some of them have had repeated brain injuries, but this berates the point.

I am not calling them stupid. I am willing to say they don't typically receive enough education around critical thinking especially in their formative years.

The NHLPA (and other athletic player's unions) is unique from other standard working unions whether it's a grocery, a trade, or administrative in that they are seeking collective bargaining strength against an employer but also have to compete against their own working personnel to gain continued employment and so I think the forefront of safety as a workplace concern does not carry nearly the same weight or understanding.

If I'm injured at work for whatever reason, the union will bend over backwards for me to make sure I have every reasonable opportunity to return to my former position, but that doesn't hold for hockey players.

When Player A injures Player B, Player C is ready to step up to the plate; only Player B feels wronged, and Players A & C don't think they'll ever be in Player B's position and Player B gets to retire early or ride buses for the rest of their playing career.
 
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I’m one of those Neanderthals who thinks neck and wrist guards actually do inhibit performance and would prefer to take my chances not using them.

Even I don’t understand why anyone would be out there without cut-resistant socks. It’s just socks. How uncomfortable could they possibly be?
 
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It should be mandatory. Screw the players and their desires. A helmet is mandatory. Basic safety should be mandatory. I don’t know why this is so complicated.
This is why they fight even the rule changes that most of them would follow even if it were not a rule; the over-regulators will never back up once they have their foot in the door. If you give a mouse a cookie...
 
There's not a single piece of protective gear in hockey that is more comfortable than not wearing it. So discomfort is such a stupid reason not to wear certain gear. At least make the potentionally life saving ones mandatory. Do it now cause it's going to happen anyway.

By that logic it would be better to just eliminate physical contact from the game.

The sport is dangerous by nature.
 
There's not a single piece of protective gear in hockey that is more comfortable than not wearing it. So discomfort is such a stupid reason not to wear certain gear. At least make the potentionally life saving ones mandatory. Do it now cause it's going to happen anyway.

Literally the same arguments were used for helmets

And if you go back further, facemasks for goalies

I'm with you

By that logic it would be better to just eliminate physical contact from the game.

The sport is dangerous by nature.

There's a line where it becomes obnoxious, and cut-resistant socks doesn't seem to be anywhere near it..
 
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I mean, sure, if you want to leave millions on the table and potentially end your career so that you can wear slightly more comfortable socks.

Exactly. The call for mandatory socks is silly.

Shout from the mountain tops how it's such a good idea. That's a far cry from yelling "There ought to be a law" grr..
 
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After seeing what happened to Erik Karlsson's career, I think you'd have to be nuts not to wear them.
Malarchuk, Zednik, Audette ... there have been far too many instances of what should have been the last straw. And it's not like this stuff is new tech. It's been around for a long time. I'd like to see gloves with proper gauntlets too, but I'm not prepared to die on that hill.
 
Malarchuk, Zednik, Audette ... there have been far too many instances of what should have been the last straw. And it's not like this stuff is new tech. It's been around for a long time. I'd like to see gloves with proper gauntlets too, but I'm not prepared to die on that hill.

I always wore gloves with a decent cuff length when I played, because I figured I was just an amateur player and it's not like my puck handling skills were very good anyway. I didn't know that cut-resistant base layers existed until the Karlsson injury though. They weren't for sale at my local hockey shops which is where I bought my gear for most of my playing career. I did switch out a cage for a visor, but that's because I was also an official and only owned one helmet, and was too lazy to swap back and forth between the two. It made what I perceived as a noticeable difference on how I was able to see things on the ice as a player.
 
There's not a single piece of protective gear in hockey that is more comfortable than not wearing it. So discomfort is such a stupid reason not to wear certain gear.
I know a player currently playing junior hockey who refuses to wear a jock because it's "uncomfortable". o_O
 
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I think some people may be under the assumption cut proof socks are the socks that players wear over their shin guards so they wouldn’t be uncomfortable at all but they’re the long socks on your bare foot under the shin guards under the hockey socks. They are definitely less comfortable than normal socks in my opinion, but I do wear them.
 
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I can’t get my 12y old boy to wear the socks I bought. Drives me crazy. Daughter does though, she likes them. Why not right, but then I don’t wear them either

Socks is getting pretty nitty gritty to mandate. Let’s get through the neck guards first, that one saves a life once a year it seems like.
 
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