The Children’s hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine have recommended changes to be made to rules in Canadian Youth Hockey.

University of Ottawa’s Dr Kristian Goulet spearheaded research on body contact on teenagers and found his conclusions to be problematic with the current Hockey Canada guidelines. Hockey Canada currently allows body checking and all other forms of bodily contact from the age of 13 upwards. Dr Goulet says that the minimum age should be raised for this rule.

Dr Goulet states in his findings that body contact can greatly increase the chances of concussions. He states almost half of all injuries in hockey are caused by body checking, that risk quadruples when looking at just children and teenage players. Removing body checking from the youth leagues could cut the chances of injury by around 50 percent according to Dr Goulet.

There are around 200,000 concussions reported in Canada each year, that’s around 550 every day. Dr Goulet is calling for the rule to be changed to a minimum age of 15 for body checking as concussions can have serious long-term effects on children.

According to a study published by Science direct, one in four head related injuries of thirteen-year-olds were caused by body checks. Hockey is the number one cause of injuries for children in hockey which is why a rule change of this nature could cut the number of injured children on a very large scale.

The CHEO position and University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine’s findings have spurred Dr Goulet to call on Hockey Canada to revise their rule. He has said that he’s hopeful that by publishing the review, he can call the federation’s attention to what he believes to be a serious problem in the sport. Dr Goulet also said he is hopeful that Hockey Canada will further their understanding of head injuries especially those which have long-term or dangerous effects and improve their prevention methods. 

He said: “Sport is incredibly important for the mental, physical, emotional and social health of our kids. However, it’s our duty as health care providers, parents, coaches and decision makers to make all reasonable efforts to play sports as safely as possible.” Hockey leagues across the world have been looking much deeper into concussion safety in the last two decades. 

Dr. Marshall from Complete Concussions, a network of trained multidisciplinary healthcare practitioners who provide evidence-based concussion assessment. agrees with  Dr.Goulet as well. " You need to delay concussions are long as possible", he states. Professionals all seem to point to the fact that earlier concussions create longer term affects as well.

Dr. Marshall also believes the age-old argument of introducing contact earlier to kids in order to prepare them adequately also doesn't hold. " Studies conclude across the board that those getting introduced to body checking later are not any worst off in terms of hockey development than their peers who start contact hockey early on" affirms the head of Complete Concussions.

When it comes to the hockey government bodies, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) spearheaded the formation of an annual meeting of sporting federation heads to discuss concussion protocols in 2001, The International consensus on concussions in sport. Hockey in the UK for example has also taken large steps towards making the sport safer for its players by introducing the use of virtual reality technology to monitor their players’ brain health. 

These are many firsts which hockey has achieved and brought to the sporting world. Hockey has led the way in many regards with concussion safety and a continual evolution to Hockey Canada’s mandate could help to further that reputation of leadership and initiative shown by the sport.