Always excellent sports columnist Steve Simmons writes in today's Toronto Sun (and Monday's London Free Press): "In every NHL game there are six or seven hits that would get you suspended in minor hockey: It's hard for kids who watch the NHL to understand what they can and cannot do in their own games."
Interesting that some hits from behind will get a kid tossed from a game when they are 12 or 13, but part of the routine when they are 16 or 17. And don't even get me started with hits to the head and late hits in which the puck is nowhere close and the hit in no way tactical to the game - just an intimidation move or burst of teen boy bravado.
Still, it's hits, not goals or great saves, that get the biggest response from benches and hockey moms. Hockey dads just quietly grin or grimace.
Here's the Toronto Sun link to Simmon's full column.
http://www.torontosun.com/sports/columnists/steve_simmons/2010/10/23/15805331.html
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