Hockey Canada board votes to ban bodychecking for peewee players

Thought I applaud the idea, I have to agree with Don Cherry on this. What happens to those little guys when they advance to the bigger leagues unprepared for battle?

I've spent several thousand hours on the ice during minor hockey games. In my experience, most of the injuries occur in local/house-league hockey. Kids get hurt when they haven't the balance and skating skills to handle it. I hear people say "kids need to learn to take a check". That's a bullshit phrase. It's meaningless. No one "learns" how to take a check. What one learns is how to skate, how to maintain balance on skates.

I think that body checking should be removed from all local league hockey, at all age levels. But there's nothing wrong with body checking at rep levels, including novice. Novice rep kids skate well enough to give and receive checks. And it's those kids that are going to go on to play junior and beyond. Include bodychecking on a skill-level basis, not an arbitrary age.

Exactly what I was thinking.