3 Unwritten Laws of Hockey - Written.

Hockey is fast, it is physical, it is adrenalin charged. It provides plenty of opportunity to get under the skin of your opponent either through verbal jabs, strong shoulders on the boards or the “coincidental” hits on the ice during a non-contact game. There are also plenty of ways to retaliate if it’s your ire that the opponent is raising. The best way of course is to score a goal. If it’s the winning goal, even better.

But there are some things you just don’t do.

1) Hits of any sort to the head. Whether an elbow, a shoulder or a stick, keep it down. With the speed you’re travelling on those skates, with your body weight behind you, if you can’t take a guy off the puck with your shoulder to his body, or if you can’t pin him to the boards to free the puck for a team mate, then you need work on your balance and strength. Hitting the head of an opponent is a cheap tactic used by cowards that are looking for an easy way out of a good battle.

2) Taking out the knees. There’s a saying in rugby: “Take away his legs, he can’t run without them.” But this ain’t rugby. In hockey you don’t tackle, you hit or out-hustle your check to the puck. A knee-on-knee hit is a lazy attempt at slowing down a check. You desperately try slow the player down by throwing your knee in front of him. because you were too slow to get there and off target.

3) Hitting from behind. Simply ignorant. All youth recreational levels of hockey have stop signs on the back of the jersey as a constant reminder how dangerous this action is. Head injuries, spinal cord injuries, shoulder injuries, rib injuries, leg, ankle and foot injuries are all possible outcomes of a hit from behind. Personally I’ve seen cracked ribs, a concussion and a broken heel in my years of playing. Most recently the broken heel which has put a labourer, foremen, husband and dad out of a job for 8-weeks. I’ve also seen the brouhaha that results afterwards, and the retribution carried over seasons. The most telling sign of how distasteful this action is; team-mates shaking their head, turning away from their own player who committed the foul.

In the beer-leagues where every person on that sheet of ice has a family and a day job to go to, a hit to the head, a knee-on-knee hit and a hit from behind into the boards extend well beyond the game. It can affect a person’s whole life. In an emotionally charged game we all get carried away and perhaps do or say things that we know we shouldn’t, but no matter what the situation, the 3 now-written laws of hockey are never part of the scenario.