Music: {allcanada} Hockey Canada votes to ban body checking at pee-wee level

Saturday, May 25, 2013

{allcanada} Hockey Canada votes to ban body checking at pee-wee level

Youth hockey in Canada just became a little bit safer.

The Hockey Canada board of directors voted on Saturday to eliminate body checking from pee-wee hockey, a move that will apply to 11- and 12-year-old players across the country starting this fall.

A number of provinces had already placed a ban on body checking at the pee-wee level in recent years. Saturday's vote will impact pee-wee hockey across the entire country.

Similar restrictions are already in place in the United States, where body checking is not permitted until players are 14 years old, and it hasn't exactly slowed the development of American players (the American youth hockey program is as strong as it has ever been and getting stronger).

Paul Carson, Hockey Canada's vice president of hockey development, said on Friday that "Body checking has been identified as the single most consistent risk factor for injuries in sports." He also pointed to data that showed "there is a three times greater risk of injury and four times greater risk of concussions in body checking environments in the pee-wee age category."

It's sure to be a controversial move in some circles (such as the people who think every hockey game at every level has to be a real-life version of the 1970s movie Slap Shot), but it's the right move to make.