Do I dare bring up the visor debate?
Let's just be honest-as long as Grapes is alive, breathing and "coherent" (meaning he does know what day it is but anything beyond that is questionable), visors will never be mandatory.
That said, there are some very valid arguments for not using them-fogging up, causing injuries themselves from breaking on guy's faces, the issue of starting a fight with a visor.
The fog can't be fixed-you can't help plastic showing the air coming from a human. The latter two can be addressed with better and stronger plastic and elimination of said rule.
Er.....Don Cherry doesn't have as much power as you're attributing to him. Really.
The reason is that the players don't want the visors. Plain and simple. They can't wait to get them off once they're done with Junior. It's not because they want to show how tough they are (although that may be a reason for a minority), it's like you said: they want to be able to see better, and the visor distorts their vision.
I remember when Sundin injured his eye because of a high stick (or maybe it was a puck?), and he tried to wear a visor after that. He took it off after one shift. He just couldn't see well enough with it on.
I really wonder how long Pronger will play with a visor on. One game? One week? We'll see......
I agree with the argument that players need to have more respect for each other and do more to control their sticks and keep them down. High sticks weren't as big of an issue 20-30 or so years ago, but they seem to have become more of an issue in the past 10-15 years. I think that one of the causes is the fact that players in Junior and below wear visors and full face cages. They feel invincible with a full mask on, and when your stick hits someone in the mask, it just bounces off. So, you don't
have to be as responsible with your stick when you're learning how to play. And that's where the problems begin. Once these kids make the pros and the masks/visors come off, they aren't wired to keep the stick down.
I was listening to a radio show on the FAN590, and the host was telling a story about his kid starting to play hockey and having to wear the full face cage. He said that all the kids thought it was the funniest thing to hit each other in the head with their sticks, gloves, whatever....because it didn't hurt.
I don't know what the solution is. Obviously, they can't tell kids to stop wearing cages/visors, but I also don't think that they should make visors mandatory in the NHL. These guys are professionals, and I think they have a right to choose to wear one or not. They know the risks. Being an NHLer comes with a number of risks.....some can be eliminated, some can be minimized, and some are always just going to be there.
I'd love to see some stats showing the # of high sticks before helmets were mandatory vs. the # of high sticks since helmets were made mandatory in 1979 (actually, I think it would be better if the post-mandatory year was when most of the players were wearing actually helmets. When they were made mandatory, NHL players who didn't wear one were allowed to continue to not wear one).
