Two years ago, NHL defenseman Kurtis Foster faced a scenario that every athlete fears: a career threatening injury.
Foster didn’t tear his knee or have a history of concussions. Instead, during a game between the Minnesota Wild and San Jose Sharks, Foster was chasing the puck on a potential icing call when he collided with an opponent and crashed into the boards. Foster’s left leg was shattered and doctors needed to insert a steel rod in his femur to keep it in place. There was concern the Minnesota Wild player would never walk again, his career in doubt because of a broken leg.
But all of this could have been prevented.
No-touch icing has been at the forefront of NHL debates for several years. Referees call icing when a player clears the puck into their opponent’s zone without crossing the red line. The play is stopped when the defending player touches the puck – after a high speed race for the puck. No-touch icing makes the call automatic; the play is stopped when the puck goes behind the net.
The NHL is the only major league that doesn’t have no-touch icing. The Canadian Hockey League and Russia’s Kontinential Hockey League have had no-touch icing for years. Even the American Hockey League, the NHL’s minor league where it tests potential rule changes, implemented no-touch icing in 2004. No-touch icing at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics was met with rave reviews.
With no-touch icing, players are not engaged in an all-out sprint to touch the puck, avoiding nasty crashes into the boards.
Hockey personality Don Cherry has been an advocate of no-touch icing for years. He has aired video montages of collisions from potential icing calls on CBC’s Coach’s Corner that show the brutal results. The videos are hard to watch, but illustrate how these situations are preventable.
No-touch icing also makes the game quicker. The whistle is blown when the puck is iced, not when the player touches the puck which means less time between whistles. This would generate more offence. Defending players wouldn’t be able to change and have less time to rest before the play, creating a more favourable situation for the offence, which will undoubtedly lead to more goals – an outcome the NHL is clearly obsessed with.
One downside to no-touch icing is that it can also prevent possible scoring chances when the opposing player beats the defender to the puck on an icing. With no-touch icing, the play would be whistled dead. One suggested solution is that no-touch icing be at the referee’s discretion – essentially the official decides when to blow the whistle. But this would still create potentially dangerous races for the puck.
It took Foster almost a full calendar year to return to the NHL. He is now playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning and has successfully resumed his career. However, if it had all ended when he broke his leg, then it would have been a tragic, but preventable loss. It’s time for the NHL to finally get its hands on no-touch icing.