There will be zero tolerance for hits to the head during the hockey showdown at the Vancouver Olympic Games.

Previous

Next

View Large

David Booth #10 of the Florida Panthers lies on the ice and is being placed on a stretcher after a hit by Mike Richards #18 of the Philadelphia Flyers as both teams tangle in a scrum on October 24, 2009 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Photograph by : Getty Images

ARTICLE TOOLS

• Printer friendly
• E-mail

Font:

• *
• *
• *
• *

The International Ice Hockey Federation announced on Thursday that it will crack down on all hits to the head and neck area, enforcing a rule that was adopted in 2002 at the IIHF's congress in Sweden.

"The calling of this rule follows the same principles as the rule on checking from behind," IIHF sport director Dave Fitzpatrick said Thursday on the federation's website. "This means; a two-minute minor plus a 10-minute misconduct, a five-minute major plus an automatic game misconduct or a match penalty.

"The IIHF has a supplementary discipline rule where all such calls can be reviewed and additional suspension added if deemed necessary."

While the National Hockey League continues to debate the issue of hits to the head, the IIHF introduced its rule a result of research into concussions and their long-term effects.

"This rule is backed by scientific research and study," said Fitzpatrick. "The application of the rule begins to address the insurance costs for medical attention of injured players plus the insurance for contracts between injured players and their club for missed time due to such head injury. We have learned through our research that the recovery from a concussion and the return to play is an individual one and can vary from player to player and increases with each additional concussion sustained."

Canada's Murray Costello, who is the IIHF's vice-president and chairman of the federation's medical committee, helped to introduce Rule 540, which penalizes a player "who directs a check or blow, with any part of his body, to the head and neck area of an opposing player or 'drives' or 'forces' the head of an opposing player into the protective glass on boards."

Costello played in the NHL from 1953 to 1957 with the Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings. He was inducted in 2005 as a builder to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"With the size and speed of today's game, the players' talents and their lives are far too important to subject them to direct hits to the head," Costello said on the website. "We must eliminate them from the game, in the same way we removed hitting from behind, to avoid the threat of spinal injuries."

"From the beginning, hockey has been called a body contact game for a reason," he continued. "It was never intended to be a head-checking game."