With a player being knocked unconscious and taken off the ice on a stretcher, the debate about whether head shots should be banned in the league will resume. Most times players and coaches agree that hits like this do not belong in the game and the league should take swift action against the offending player, but in this case, Devils coaches and players all seemed to agree that the hit was clean, and felt that hits like this should stay. First we hear from Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello:
Patrik Elias Hit Was Clean, So Says The Devils
“Yes. It’s part of hockey. Part of the game,” Lamoriello maintained. “I think we have to be very careful when situations like this come about that we don’t look at the physical part of the game and try and take it out.
“I think a hit like that and the way it happened was more of an exception than a norm. We’ve got 60,000 hits that go on during a season and you have a handful like that. You have to be careful that you don’t overreact. Not that we want to see that type of hit. We don’t want to see that happen, the result. But there are hits in the game. When you look at it, it’s timing. It’s one of those unfortunate situations.”
Next, we have Coach Jacques Lemaire and captain Jamie Langenbrunner:
“Sure,” Lemaire answered.
And captain Jamie Langenbrunner agreed.
“I saw it both (live and on replays),” Langenbrunner said. “Live I think everything seems like something happened, but I saw the replay of it and it was a clean hit. I think he just got himself into a little bit of an awkward position.
While the debate about hits to the head will rage on during this season, and subsequent seasons, until the league takes an official position, it is good to see a team have an opposite viewpoint about the situation, especially when it happens against them.
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