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I just watched "Ice Guardians," a documentary about enforcers in hockey. They claimed that only a small percentage (can't remember off the top of my head, maybe

I just watched "Ice Guardians," a documentary about enforcers in hockey. They claimed that only a small percentage (can't remember off the top of my head, maybe 5%) of concussions in hockey were due to fights. The majority come from the high speed nature of the game, especially after 2005. The game became a lot faster then. Big, slow players were replaced with smaller, speedier guys. The trapezoid was introduced which results in tons of defenders getting plastered behind the net while trying to retrieve the puck.

wyattk 9y ago
The problem of defencemen getting plastered was not just the trapezoid. A lot of it had to do with the way icing worked. It used to be the d-man had to "touch" the puck for it to be icing, this always resulted in d-men and forwards going nearly full speed after the puck to either get the icing call or to beat it out. The NHL has done away with this and has "no touch icing" where the d-man only has to skate to the hash marks (middle of the circles), that's removed a considerable amount of the high-speed collisions
- yeswecatan 9y ago
  Well sure, no touch is much safer, but the introduction of the trapezoid still made things much more dangerous. Icing worked the same way before and after (until a couple years ago) 2005. You didn't have defensemen getting drilled as often before 2005. No touch icing was introduced because the rule changes in 2005 made the game faster and more dangerous.
WillPostForFood 9y ago
The issue for hockey is players got faster AND bigger. You are right that average weight has dropped from the peak of 206 in 2005 to 201 today But in the 70's it was as low as 183. The slowest 200+ pound skater today would probably be in the top 20% of skaters back then. Larger players also lead to more shoulder to head hits, just because of size disparity (see: Crosby, Kariya). The other thing that is hard to capture statistically, is that teams used to have big guys that rarely would see much ice time. Now you have many legit skilled players at 220+ pounds who are regulars.

wyattk 9y ago

The problem of defencemen getting plastered was not just the trapezoid. A lot of it had to do with the way icing worked. It used to be the d-man had to "touch" the puck for it to be icing, this always resulted in d-men and forwards going nearly full speed after the puck to either get the icing call or to beat it out. The NHL has done away with this and has "no touch icing" where the d-man only has to skate to the hash marks (middle of the circles), that's removed a considerable amount of the high-speed collisions

yeswecatan 9y ago
Well sure, no touch is much safer, but the introduction of the trapezoid still made things much more dangerous. Icing worked the same way before and after (until a couple years ago) 2005. You didn't have defensemen getting drilled as often before 2005. No touch icing was introduced because the rule changes in 2005 made the game faster and more dangerous.

WillPostForFood 9y ago

The issue for hockey is players got faster AND bigger. You are right that average weight has dropped from the peak of 206 in 2005 to 201 today But in the 70's it was as low as 183. The slowest 200+ pound skater today would probably be in the top 20% of skaters back then. Larger players also lead to more shoulder to head hits, just because of size disparity (see: Crosby, Kariya). The other thing that is hard to capture statistically, is that teams used to have big guys that rarely would see much ice time. Now you have many legit skilled players at 220+ pounds who are regulars.