Want to Stop Dangerous Hits? Punish the Teams.

Today, during a great afternoon bout between the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers, Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference was ejected from the game with a boarding major. On an end to end play, Ference came rushing into the Rangers defensive zone with a head full of steam as he tried to chase the puck he had chipped toward the boards. Also racing him to the puck was Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh. As the two approached the puck, Ference, despite being well behind McDonagh, gave the Rangers sophomore player a forearm to the back which sent him reeling face first into the boards. Fortunately, McDonagh's head did not make direct contact with the boards. His shoulder and chest received a majority of the impact, which will hopefully mean that McDonagh will be concussion free in the aftermath.

While it wasn't necessarily a malicious hit, it was certainly a reckless one. Ference even admitted as much after the game. This hit is, however, just another in a series of reckless hits that we've seen threaten player safety in the last two or three seasons. The league has done a lot to combat these types of hits, those efforts culminating in the hiring of Brendan Shanahan as the league's chief disciplinarian. He has done a good job so far. He has standardized the criteria for suspensions, and has incorporated an element of transparency into the process that previously didn't exist. Unfortunately, it has not yet proven to be enough. Concussions have affected the likes of Claude Giroux, Milan Michalek, Jeff Skinner, Chris Pronger, and most notably, Sidney Crosby. So what more can the league do to reduce concussions? The first thing to do is to look at the equipment being used, and investigate whether players are using helmets that will guard against concussions most effectively. The second thing to do, though, is to reexamine what incentives are going to reduce dangerous hits. Originally, the league thought that attacking players' wallets would be the best way of discouraging recklessness. However, I think that the issue isn't best tackled on an individual level. It's best attacked on a team level.

What if a team lost a point in the standings for every 5 games in suspensions that it received? I bet you that would create a decline in the number of reckless hits around the league. There's a lot to debate about a system like that-- how many games equal a loss in points? How many points should teams lose per deduction? Is it fair to punish teams competitively (and financially) by directly affecting their place in the standings based on the actions of one member of the organization? They're all fair questions. I think they all have answers though. The mathematics of the system can be worked out easily. And I believe that the answer to the final question is yes. Of course accidents occur, and it would be hard to swallow a fall in the standings based on an accident, but that's the very thing of the matter. Accidents happen because players put themselves in situations where accidents can occur. Ference may not have meant to board McDonagh, but he came in way too fast at the boards, and that's what caused the accident. Players represent the organization that employs them. That's why they do charity appearances for those organizations, that's why they play for them. An organization is responsible for what it puts on the ice, and it should be held responsible for what occurs on it as well. It's only fair.