Period ends early after Dylan Holloway takes puck up high and seems to collapse on bench after finishing the shift

[teugen]

I'm not going to get into the need for them to protect them from skates cuts, I understand, though disagree, the argument. But arguing they need it when the player gets hit by the puck as if it would've have protected them is laughable.

Am I somehow mistaken or did I not say it wont help in a situation like this?

 

[Nikki Potnick]

Am I somehow mistaken or did I not say it wont help in a situation like this?

Then why are you responding to me saying that "neck guard people" are funny, when they do think it would help in this situation? Then bringing up protection from skates cuts when that's not what happened in this situation?

 

[tarheelhockey]

Yes, this occurred because of larger shin pads and not because of the evolution of the game and guys whipping pucks around at 80+ mph instead of sliding it along the ice.

But that’s not what I said at all, is it?

Evolution is exactly what I’m pointing at. It wasn’t so long ago that players picked their spots with shot blocking, and generally tried to keep their face/throat out of the line of fire, even if it meant using a glove for extra protection. Upgrading their pads and adding visors were obvious steps to making it safer to step in front of a shot, but that has the converse effect of causing players to take increasingly dangerous risks because they feel protected.

The incident last night had a guy doing this in front of a point shot:

That’s standard technique now, because the assumption is that all the vital areas are protected. So he looms over the puck with his face sticking out and neck exposed, more concerned with using his hands as goalie gloves than using them to protect himself. It only takes the puck coming high off the stick to put it point-blank into an area that could disable or kill him.

We’ve seen the same phenomenon happen in everything from football to lacrosse rugby to baseball. It’s practically a foundational principle in sports — the more padding you give an athlete, the more he puts himself in position to sustain a catastrophic injury. Adding more pads isn’t necessarily the best next step, as there’s also a need for de-escalation and teaching players not to put themselves in mortal danger over some routine play.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

But that’s not what I said at all, is it?

Evolution is exactly what I’m pointing at. It wasn’t so long ago that players picked their spots with shot blocking, and generally tried to keep their face/throat out of the line of fire, even if it meant using a glove for extra protection. Upgrading their pads and adding visors were obvious steps to making it safer to step in front of a shot, but that has the converse effect of causing players to take increasingly dangerous risks because they feel protected.

The incident last night had a guy doing this in front of a point shot:

That’s standard technique now, because the assumption is that all the vital areas are protected. So he looms over the puck with his face sticking out and neck exposed, more concerned with using his hands as goalie gloves than using them to protect himself. It only takes the puck coming high off the stick to put it point-blank into an area that could disable or kill him.

We’ve seen the same phenomenon happen in everything from football to lacrosse rugby to baseball. It’s practically a foundational principle in sports — the more padding you give an athlete, the more he puts himself in position to sustain a catastrophic injury. Adding more pads isn’t necessarily the best next step, as there’s also a need for de-escalation and teaching players not to put themselves in mortal danger over some routine play.

Gotcha, I’ve read “Foolproof” on this exact issue and get your argument, but I also think it’s kinda.. not irrelevant, but it ignores reality as it is. We’re not gonna remove pads, or the knowledge that blocking shots helps your team, so what can we do? We also know the league isn’t gonna ban purposely blocking shots, though I do see an argument for not leaving your feet. Wouldn’t have helped here, obviously.

Idk, I guess in this specific case I don’t see a problem with some decently stiff neckguards. I had one back in the day, it was fine. I also get why people say this is a one-off and wahh don’t change anything, I need to see player’s necks for some reason. I just disagree with those people. Even if the odds are low, this is one I don’t see leading to riskier behavior, like in your argument.

Tangentially, and to your argument- I do think what you’re saying is true with football helmets, shit shoulda been redesigned 20 years ago.

 

[57special]

I'm guessing the neck guard is a bit more uncomfortable than wearing a seat belt, but each person can make that decision themselves. We've still got like 6 players who choose not to wear a visor on their helmets despite knowing the risks, and I bet there would be even more if it wasn't mandated.

Regardless, we don't need to turn this thread into a debate on neck guards since they likely wouldn't have made a difference in this case.

I find them pretty comfortable... depending on the brand/type you wear they are really not very restrictive. I think players feel that they make them run a bit hotter. A rink full of 20,000 fans gets a lot warmer than your local arena with 250.

 

[AnInjuredJasonZucker]

But that’s not what I said at all, is it?

Evolution is exactly what I’m pointing at. It wasn’t so long ago that players picked their spots with shot blocking, and generally tried to keep their face/throat out of the line of fire, even if it meant using a glove for extra protection. Upgrading their pads and adding visors were obvious steps to making it safer to step in front of a shot, but that has the converse effect of causing players to take increasingly dangerous risks because they feel protected.

The incident last night had a guy doing this in front of a point shot:

That’s standard technique now, because the assumption is that all the vital areas are protected. So he looms over the puck with his face sticking out and neck exposed, more concerned with using his hands as goalie gloves than using them to protect himself. It only takes the puck coming high off the stick to put it point-blank into an area that could disable or kill him.

We’ve seen the same phenomenon happen in everything from football to lacrosse rugby to baseball. It’s practically a foundational principle in sports — the more padding you give an athlete, the more he puts himself in position to sustain a catastrophic injury. Adding more pads isn’t necessarily the best next step, as there’s also a need for de-escalation and teaching players not to put themselves in mortal danger over some routine play.

The positives generally outweigh the negatives - particularly in hockey, which is just an insane sport when you break it down. I think that the nature of the sport lends itself to having more participants who are generally less concerned with personal safety. The shot going where it did in this case would not be an expected outcome, and in an era with less padding, I don't think that players would have covered their face and neck under these circumstances.

Note: This is representation of Terry Sawchuk's face based on the amalgamation of all of his recorded injuries.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The positives generally outweigh the negatives - particularly in hockey, which is just an insane sport when you break it down. I think that the nature of the sport lends itself to having more participants who are generally less concerned with personal safety. The shot going where it did in this case would not be an expected outcome, and in an era with less padding, I don't think that players would have covered their face and neck under these circumstances.

View attachment 927067
Note: This is representation of Terry Sawchuk's face based on the amalgamation of all of his recorded injuries.

Goalie gear is an excellent example of a situation where shooting suddenly got much more dangerous (slapshots) so goalies responded by wearing masks, then fast forward one generation and goalies are universally trained to drop and put their face directly in front of a shot. The natural outcome was the evolution of the butterfly technique, which in turn led to the widespread hip and joint strain that now prevents modern goalies from playing 500 games in a row like they were doing in Sawchuk’s era. (okay, that was just one goalie, but you take my point… goalies no longer play complete seasons because of the accumulated injury risk involved)

As you say, the positives outweigh the negatives — we damned sure wouldn’t go back to maskless goalies now, that would be crazy. But goalies also get injured quite a bit more than they used to, despite the implications of Sawchuk’s stage makeup in that Time Magazine article.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1854220226688147885

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

But that’s not what I said at all, is it?

Evolution is exactly what I’m pointing at. It wasn’t so long ago that players picked their spots with shot blocking, and generally tried to keep their face/throat out of the line of fire, even if it meant using a glove for extra protection. Upgrading their pads and adding visors were obvious steps to making it safer to step in front of a shot, but that has the converse effect of causing players to take increasingly dangerous risks because they feel protected.

The incident last night had a guy doing this in front of a point shot:

That’s standard technique now, because the assumption is that all the vital areas are protected. So he looms over the puck with his face sticking out and neck exposed, more concerned with using his hands as goalie gloves than using them to protect himself. It only takes the puck coming high off the stick to put it point-blank into an area that could disable or kill him.

We’ve seen the same phenomenon happen in everything from football to lacrosse rugby to baseball. It’s practically a foundational principle in sports — the more padding you give an athlete, the more he puts himself in position to sustain a catastrophic injury. Adding more pads isn’t necessarily the best next step, as there’s also a need for de-escalation and teaching players not to put themselves in mortal danger over some routine play.

Agreed. Bertuzzi broke his hand taking a shot into his open glove. I don't know what player's are thinking. At least turn your hand around to have the thicker padding facing the shot.

Players are also more likely to reach their sick out for a deflection which increases the chance of them deflecting it right into their face. I feel like years ago the common technique was feet together and stick in front of the skates.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Agreed. Bertuzzi broke his hand taking a shot into his open glove. I don't know what player's are thinking. At least turn your hand around to have the thicker padding facing the shot.

Players are also more likely to reach their sick out for a deflection which increases the chance of them deflecting it right into their face. I feel like years ago the common technique was feet together and stick in front of the skates.

I may be wrong but my perception is that a change took place when coaches started wanting players to get stoppages in the defensive zone, because the analytics say you’d rather have a line change and a faceoff than an extended possession by the opponent. So now it’s not so much looking for a block as looking to ramp the puck out of play if possible.

Players breaking their hands blocking shots is crazy. The positive value of one blocked shot versus the negative value of a key player needing hand surgery… not exactly a balanced equation.

 

[12ozPapa]

Is he OK?

 

[Reality Czech]

I find them pretty comfortable... depending on the brand/type you wear they are really not very restrictive. I think players feel that they make them run a bit hotter. A rink full of 20,000 fans gets a lot warmer than your local arena with 250.

Honestly I can't speak about it. I wore the old school padded ring as a kid but haven't worn one of the newer ones. I'm sure anyone could get used to them in theory but you know how stubborn hockey players, and men in general, can be.

 

[Tie Domi Esquire]

Hopefully there's some sticks invented soon that make it so babies can rip the puck like Bobby Hull, it's for the betterment of the game.

 

[Reality Czech]

Is he OK?

He sure looks like it in the video posted right above your post.

 

[AnInjuredJasonZucker]

Goalie gear is an excellent example of a situation where shooting suddenly got much more dangerous (slapshots) so goalies responded by wearing masks, then fast forward one generation and goalies are universally trained to drop and put their face directly in front of a shot. The natural outcome was the evolution of the butterfly technique, which in turn led to the widespread hip and joint strain that now prevents modern goalies from playing 500 games in a row like they were doing in Sawchuk’s era. (okay, that was just one goalie, but you take my point… goalies no longer play complete seasons because of the accumulated injury risk involved)

As you say, the positives outweigh the negatives — we damned sure wouldn’t go back to maskless goalies now, that would be crazy. But goalies also get injured quite a bit more than they used to, despite the implications of Sawchuk’s stage makeup in that Time Magazine article.

You were talking about getting disabled or killed, not getting a sore hip from going into the butterfly. And injuries incurred in that regard are primarily a function of the improved speed and skill of the game, not because goalies have better equipment.

Regarding soft tissue injuries, players in 50s would have been more likely to play through, and not even disclose any issues as injuries.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I may be wrong but my perception is that a change took place when coaches started wanting players to get stoppages in the defensive zone, because the analytics say you’d rather have a line change and a faceoff than an extended possession by the opponent. So now it’s not so much looking for a block as looking to ramp the puck out of play if possible.

Players breaking their hands blocking shots is crazy. The positive value of one blocked shot versus the negative value of a key player needing hand surgery… not exactly a balanced equation.

Actually I remembered that Bertuzzi broke his hand twice in a row blocking shots. He had only played 7 games since breaking his hand the first time when he broke it again getting hit with a puck.

The first time was definitely him trying to block a shot holding his open glove facing the shooter. The second I can't remember exactly. But it took him out of the lineup for weeks. Not to mention damaging a critical part of your body for the game of hockey.

 

[tarheelhockey]

You were talking about getting disabled or killed, not getting a sore hip from going into the butterfly. And injuries incurred in that regard are primarily a function of the improved speed and skill of the game, not because goalies have better equipment.

Regarding soft tissue injuries, players in 50s would have been more likely to play through, and not even disclose any issues as injuries.

In the first sentence I think you’re in violent conflict with my point above — of course we would never take goalie masks out of the game, that would be a murderous choice.

My point isn’t that masks were a bad idea in the first place, but that they had unpredictable long-term outcomes on goalie injury rates. Obviously it was a performance benefit to be able to square up to slapshots without fear of losing an eye. But then again, deliberately squaring up to an eye-level slapshot is a performance benefit but not necessarily a safety benefit. It was nothing uncommon in the era of fiberglass masks to see goalies knocked out cold by shots off their faces, and certain goalies (Cheevers comes to mind) were criticized for dodging shots they perceived as “not worth it” in low-leverage situations.

By the 1980s, not only were goalies choosing to stick their faces in front of increasingly high-velocity shots in an increasingly high-scoring league, they were developing the butterfly form that deliberately uses the goalie’s head as an obstacle near the crossbar. An example of a goalie who played his early years in that era and then matured into today’s league is Tim Thomas, whose CTE became so advanced at a young age that it led to dramatic personality shifts which curtailed a Vezina-level career. To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the media has asked the question: where does a goalie rack up enough sub-concussive impacts to develop brain damage in his 30s?

Meanwhile, the butterfly as practiced by the 2000s was also responsible not just for “sore hips” but for total deterioration of the joints responsible for life-altering disability. Practically every fanbase can point to a goalie they watched slowly deteriorate due to over-strain on his hips after decades of butterfly hockey. Cam Ward, Eddie Lack, and Antti Raanta are sad examples for this Canes fan. Tristan Jarry is another one we are watching fall apart year-over-year.

By the way, this isn’t just anecdotal on my part. It’s an established medical consequence of butterfly goaltending:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269719037_Characterization_of_Symptomatic_Hip_Impingement_in_Butterfly_Ice_Hockey_Goalies

So here we are in 2024, reading medical journal articles about how the predominant technique in modern goaltending systematically breaks down the mechanical structure of the body, and puts the brain squarely in the bullseye for shooters. How the heck did we get here? What put us on that path? A big part of it was sensibly providing goalies with safety equipment to compensate for higher and harder shooting sixty years ago.

That doesn’t make protective equipment “wrong”. It does mean we need to think beyond the simple logic of “more padding = less injuries”. The full equation is more like “more padding = temporary injury reduction = riskier behavior = more injuries”. This has proven to be the case in hockey but also in numerous other sports and contexts (simple example: look at the change in a skateboarder’s behavior when you rightly and sensibly give him a helmet)

 

[Novak Djokovic]

Sounds like vasovagal syncope, thankfully.

 

[mattihp]

He felt it as soon as the adrenaline wore off. That looked serious.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Sounds like vasovagal syncope, thankfully.

Isn't this just a fancy way of saying he fainted?

 

[Toby91ca]

Agreed. Bertuzzi broke his hand taking a shot into his open glove. I don't know what player's are thinking. At least turn your hand around to have the thicker padding facing the shot.

Players are also more likely to reach their sick out for a deflection which increases the chance of them deflecting it right into their face. I feel like years ago the common technique was feet together and stick in front of the skates.

Putting the palm out like this is crazy...there is no padding there and so many small bones in your hand

 

[Barrie22]

I'm guessing the neck guard is a bit more uncomfortable than wearing a seat belt, but each person can make that decision themselves. We've still got like 6 players who choose not to wear a visor on their helmets despite knowing the risks, and I bet there would be even more if it wasn't mandated.

Regardless, we don't need to turn this thread into a debate on neck guards since they likely wouldn't have made a difference in this case.

After a while you don't even realize you are wearing one. Just like anything else that players complain about that makes them uncomfortable. Players whined about helmets, players whined about visors, players would whine about neck guards for a whole minute and then the game would start and there would be no change to anything.

 

[AnInjuredJasonZucker]

In the first sentence I think you’re in violent conflict with my point above — of course we would never take goalie masks out of the game, that would be a murderous choice.

My point isn’t that masks were a bad idea in the first place, but that they had unpredictable long-term outcomes on goalie injury rates. Obviously it was a performance benefit to be able to square up to slapshots without fear of losing an eye. But then again, deliberately squaring up to an eye-level slapshot is a performance benefit but not necessarily a safety benefit. It was nothing uncommon in the era of fiberglass masks to see goalies knocked out cold by shots off their faces, and certain goalies (Cheevers comes to mind) were criticized for dodging shots they perceived as “not worth it” in low-leverage situations.

By the 1980s, not only were goalies choosing to stick their faces in front of increasingly high-velocity shots in an increasingly high-scoring league, they were developing the butterfly form that deliberately uses the goalie’s head as an obstacle near the crossbar. An example of a goalie who played his early years in that era and then matured into today’s league is Tim Thomas, whose CTE became so advanced at a young age that it led to dramatic personality shifts which curtailed a Vezina-level career. To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the media has asked the question: where does a goalie rack up enough sub-concussive impacts to develop brain damage in his 30s?

Meanwhile, the butterfly as practiced by the 2000s was also responsible not just for “sore hips” but for total deterioration of the joints responsible for life-altering disability. Practically every fanbase can point to a goalie they watched slowly deteriorate due to over-strain on his hips after decades of butterfly hockey. Cam Ward, Eddie Lack, and Antti Raanta are sad examples for this Canes fan. Tristan Jarry is another one we are watching fall apart year-over-year.

By the way, this isn’t just anecdotal on my part. It’s an established medical consequence of butterfly goaltending:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269719037_Characterization_of_Symptomatic_Hip_Impingement_in_Butterfly_Ice_Hockey_Goalies

So here we are in 2024, reading medical journal articles about how the predominant technique in modern goaltending systematically breaks down the mechanical structure of the body, and puts the brain squarely in the bullseye for shooters. How the heck did we get here? What put us on that path? A big part of it was sensibly providing goalies with safety equipment to compensate for higher and harder shooting sixty years ago.

That doesn’t make protective equipment “wrong”. It does mean we need to think beyond the simple logic of “more padding = less injuries”. The full equation is more like “more padding = temporary injury reduction = riskier behavior = more injuries”. This has proven to be the case in hockey but also in numerous other sports and contexts (simple example: look at the change in a skateboarder’s behavior when you rightly and sensibly give him a helmet)

The firehose method at work.

The butterfly style was not a result of the advent of the goalie mask (What's up, Glenn Hall?), and didn't really catch on widely until nearly two decades after masks became common place. Tim Thomas is about the worst example of a butterfly goalie in the last 20 years. CTE can only be diagnosed post mortem. We can suspect, but declarative statements on how advanced it is in an individual is conjecture, at best.

Ultimately, though, the only thing that I took issue with is the degree to which improvements in protective equipment may have inintended negative consequences in certain circumstances. I could be way off, but not when it comes to goalies as evidenced by the historical record of how small pre-mask goalies squared up to the shooter. Shoulder pads? That's something that the league let get way out of hand.

 

[12ozPapa]

He sure looks like it in the video posted right above your post.

Didn’t see that. Thanks for being a douche though.

 

[Sniper99]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1854220226688147885

Glad hes alright.