Visors should be grandfathered into NHL

EDITORIAL

What do Bryan Berard, Manny Malhotra and Marc Staal have in common?

Their names are the rallying cry of the “pro-visor” movement in hockey.

Staal is just the latest in a seemingly never-ending list of players who have suffered a needless injury to their most valuable asset. The New York Rangers alternate captain appears to have escaped relatively unscathed, relatively being the operative word. Doctors expect he will make a full recovery after being struck in the eye with a deflected slap shot from Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Kimmo Timonen.

Others haven’t been so lucky.

Vancouver forward Manny Malhotra’s career appears all but finished. He has attempted a comeback after suffering a similar fate March 16, 2011 but the significant vision loss in his left eye has quashed these efforts.

And of course there is the poster boy for debilitating eye injuries – Bryan Berard – who took an accidental high stick from then Ottawa Senators forward Marian Hossa March 11, 2000.

Google Berard, Malhotra or Staal and the first result is eye injury. Berard’s 1997 Calder Trophy, Malhotra’s defensive prowess and Staal’s consecutive gold medals at the World Juniors are overshadowed.

This is an entirely avoidable injury.

Berard, Malhotra and Staal all competed in the Ontario Hockey League as junior hockey players, where visors are mandatory. All three chose to remove them when they got to the NHL. Visors are also mandatory in International Ice Hockey Federation play, the governing body for high-profile competitions. This includes the Olympics, World Championships and World Junior Championships – events which the fallen trio skated in prior to their eye injuries.

With just over 70 per cent of NHL players wearing face protection, visors are clearly on an upward trend. In fact, the NHL has seen a nearly 10 per cent rise from the 2010-11 season to the 2012-13 season.

The stigma surrounding visors is no longer apparent. Whatever “manly” tag was associated with a player who chooses to stay away from his face shield is not only irrelevant, but completely nonexistent. Are 70 per cent of NHL players not “manly?”

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the same stigma surrounded helmets, which also disappeared. A player who would choose not to wear a helmet would not only be foolish, but completely and utterly reckless. Still, the infamous Craig MacTavish was the last player to not wear a helmet, whose career extended into the late ‘90s. It’s completely absurd to think of a player not wearing a helmet today, but the NHL never made a sweeping declaration that they had to go. Instead they went a different route – grandfathering it in.

As mentioned previously, any and all players who play in the NHL have at some point worn a visor or a full cage. While players will make the argument that “they know best,” such as former Boston Bruins defenceman Aaron Ward, who is extremely outspoken in the hockey community, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to switch to a visor-less helmet after junior hockey.

An argument can be made for players who have gone without their visor for years and are forced to return to their face protection – the visor can feel constricting, visually-obstructing and tight. Additionally, the visor requires maintenance, adding to an already staggeringly high-stress atmosphere the players are forced to work under.
However, grandfathering visors would not only avoid forcing veteran players to change their ways, but increase the game’s safety.

It was not so long ago that MacTavish roamed the ice with his mane flowing in his wake, but it feels like an entirely different era. Since then we’ve seen two lockouts, a heightened awareness of the dangers in the sport and rules to make the game safer.

Pictures of helmet-less hockey players must baffle younger fans. Hopefully the NHL has reached the point in time where a future generation will look upon skaters without visors the same way.

While they’re still able to see, that is.