That’s definitely true. NHL these days ain’t so physical league as it was back in the 90s.
Silent-Obligation-49
Having watched hockey for many years he is %100 correct there is very little hitting in the NHL now.
thatguy752000
That’s an accurate statement. The fans whine about every hit lately too.
Odd_Confusion2923
Absolutely dead on
Sad-Technology9484
That was an illegal hit – for a 2 min penalty. Not 5 and a game.
Sad-Technology9484
The thing that bothers me the most is the inconsistency
buddyboykoda
He’s right and unfortunately it starts at the bottom. They’ve taken hitting out of almost all of minor hockey so people aren’t learning how to absorb or throw a hit until they are 15-16 years old. Learning how to take a hit from a 10 year old who is 75 pounds is far less punishing then learning how to take a hit from a 16 year old who is basically a man and weighs 200 lbs
Significant_Pie_206
Body checking begins in the playoffs, players take the regular season off.
MNGopherfan
The bigger problem is that players have now gotten so used to not being hit that they aren’t ready for it. Players need to do more work on being ready for hits so they don’t get head injuries.
MangoJuice82
I want to add that this is the 2nd time this season that Luke let up his skating while chasing the puck into the boards and got nailed by a vet. I think the first one was against the Caps. He stayed down on the ice for minute or 2 trying to regain his bearings. I really really hope the coaches work with him on how to avoid that bc we ABSOLUTELY CANNOT afford to lose him to injuries.
Jimmy_October
This is 100% accurate.
I get what people want to get away from and I think it is fine to want to distance yourself from the idea of gratuitous violence.
But the game needs to be tough still. Hits, corner work, driving to the net, battles in the house. It is these components combined with the speed that makes hockey so unique and difficult and the best sport in the world.
So much of this is missing from the modern game and there are a lot of hyper skilled players inundating the league *coughMitchMarnerWilliamNylandercough* that are regular season individual stats highlight reels but are reduced to boys playing a man’s game in the playoffs.
freszh_inztallz42o
Its better that you need to hit clean, seems like rick tocchets trying to make our boys take the body
3rr0r369
Ya sadly… I get reducing fighting but hitting is just sad. Bettman needs to go and daly. The amount of players that try to jump away when a hit is coming then getting themselves injured from knee on knee or something seems to be going up. I don’t wanna watch an “all skill” nhl with no contact. All guts no glory baby.
DivClassLg
I wish someone would hit this mothertrucker
Sad_Opinion_874
I’m wondering how many less concussions are diagnosed in the league as a result though. I’ve had a few concussions in my younger days and I would much rather break my leg than suffer from years of migraine headaches again. Yeah hit can be/were fun to watch but it does lead to more injuries.
JWHY1975
They wear pads and helmets for a reason
C-Notations
Tough to see this written down and spelled out. Too real.
Main_Length_6866
I don’t like how a good clean hit warrants this massive overreaction, but pretending that playing physical in hockey isn’t necessary to win the Stanley Cup? That’s funny.
“No hit league” lol we all watch the same sport yeah?
goodwilhuntingseason
I know there are big differences in longevity, speed, skill etc. but high school and college are played way more physically than the NHL these days. I constantly see guys with heads down/puck in between skates that would get absolutely run over at the amateur level but almost never happens in the NHL.
Dolinarius
Hockey in general…
BallsMahogany_redux
I love Torts.
BumpyMcPeen
Common Torts W
Nathan_Mediocre
That’s what they get for trying to turn into a fuckin euro league
Mission_Count_5619
It’s how the game is being taught at the youth level. We still teach checking but are teaching when not to check just as much. Some of it makes sense. Throwing hits to punish and not as a play on the puck are dumb. It takes you out of the play and puts players at risk and out of the play just to inflict pain.
As a parent with a kid in hockey and a guy that grew up with a game that was taught and looked a lot different, I’m conflicted.
On one hand it’s a player safety issue and it’s make me feel slightly better about putting my kid on the ice. As a guy who grew up playing a more physical game I think torts is right. The next generations isn’t ready for big hits.
I’m not advocating for it but the game could be played without checking. It would be safer than what’s going on now. Either play physical or don’t.
kpedey
I suspect it isn’t even so much that guys don’t know how to take a hit anymore as it is that guys want to draw penalties as much as possible nowadays and so they put themselves in bad spots/positions willingly
NunsNunchuck
But wasn’t he also pushed into him?
Alextryingforgrate
He ain’t wrong. It annoys me to no extent to watching a player get hit or even just have the hockey stick touch their hands and then be up in arms for no penalty. Just play the puck until you hear a whistle.
Independent-Money-54
The league will always evolve adapt whatever you want to call it. It keeps evolving. Torts is right. A player like Marner etc wouldn’t get a second look based on the size of players in the 90’s. And I mean players weren’t always drafted based on skill. More kill than skill. Not saying the was no skill in the 90’s there was. It was just very diluted.
No_Bathroom2927
He’s 100% correct. The league needs to be no-hit/clean hit, because it’s bigger, faster and stronger than the league was in the 90s.
It’s easy to say when you’re behind the bench but we can’t have a sport where people are risking their lives and careers every time they take a shift on the ice.
Bad hits need to go.
Szwedo
Players weren’t ready for hits back then too, that’s why they’d get fucking rocked and injured.
Less concussions and less dirty hits overall is nice.
rchar081
No he’s not wrong
Professional-Luck795
Tom Brady agrees!
HandsomeMax_09
And they should make it a no-hit league. I dont see the benefits of keeping it.
Hardcore1993
Contact sports are becoming less and less contact. Within the next 100 years all contact sports will be banned where they can’t take the contact out. Combat sports will be banned. Football will be banned. Hockey will be no contact. Soccer won’t allow headers or sliding tackles. The entire world will be stuck with sports like tennis and cricket and baseball etc. As a whole, society will be completely soft unless we end that shit right now.
Heldpizza
Torts is correct. This league has gotten too soft
Windex-Sniffer
I miss Kronwall 🙁
sorrybutidgaf
i agree but much like the saying “nobody wants to work anymore” people have BEEN saying this statement for a while now. its not nearly as physical as it was as (thankfully) we are out of the enforcer era of the game, but its far from a “no-hitting” league. people thought when all the russians came into the league that it was getting too technical and “pretty”… 30 years ago.
i think it can be a lost art, and is not the center focus but i mean look at guys like lindros and any other big guy from back then, its hit or miss (no pun intended) whether or not they can actually take a hit, so i think its been this way for a little longer than what torts thinks
BIGGEST ISSUE IS: these kids are entering the league at 18, getting drafted and scouted much younger than that. they only played hockey where hitting was allowed for like THREE YEARS before they played in the NHL and lets be honest… nobody was actually hitting any skater good enough to get into the league in minors, they were zipping past everyone. i know people used to hit much younger on hockey, and imo thats a good thing. players learn how to play the game correctly that way.
bottom line we need to stop the goons running up players who hit their teammate with a good hockey check. thats part of the game. get over it and play. now if its your all ✯ and they get injured i understand, but let people fucking hit without having to drop the gloves afterwards… i wouldnt wanna run up someone if i KNEW i had to get a fighting major afterwards cuz of the “nobody can hit our teammates” mentality that is rampant today
Adam_Friedland_TAFS
I miss when you could hit someone, they got up just fine and a fight DIDN’T start right after.
Bug_Photographer
As a Caps fan – you take the game misconducts of Hathaway with the good he brings to the team. You don’t whine about it afterwards like a little wimp, Mr. Tortorella. The Flyers absolutely knew what kind of player they were getting when they signed Garnet.
rickyspanish895
If every hit will lead to a penalty, stoppage of play, fight, or anything else that will slow down momentum of play. You may as well take out hitting altogether. No reason to put time and effort to policing hits and enforcing safe hits when the majority league is streets ahead in its skill and creativity.
MariachiArchery
This was a much longer quote.
I agree with some of what he’s said. However, he contradicts himself at one point. Here is more of the quote:
>“I’m not trying to run down the league. **I just think we’ve taken away the policing of the game from the players.** **I do, with all the new rules, we’ve taken away the policing of the game. It should belong to the players.** > >“It’s a fast game, which is fantastic. The skill in the game is fantastic. I think some of the rule changes we’ve made have improved the game. But I just don’t think we should take the foundation of the National Hockey League out. Hits are allowed. > >“Back in the day, and I’m not trying to go way back, but you have to learn how to take a hit. That’s a big play in winning games, is taking a hit to make a play and be embraced to take these hits. **And if you do have a big hit, you shouldn’t have to fight someone two seconds later because it’s a big hit. That’s what I don’t get.**
So which is it? Are we letting players police the game or not?
Are we seeing big *clean* hits called as a penalty? Yes. Its seems to me, that there are hits in this league that are on paper clean, but will get called as a penalty because they are too violent. And that is wrong, a clean hit is a clean hit. It shouldn’t become a penalty just because it was too big, and that is what we are seeing.
And, where are officials drawing a line? Its like a sliding scale of legality.
Now, when it comes to the policing of the game, I’m all for it. But if we are going to ask players to do that, we can’t do as torts has done here and bash a guy for fighting a player who just put a giant clean hit on a skill guy.
And, its always been like this. Right now in the league, if someone where to put a big hit on Bedard for example, that dude is gonna have to fight. Full stop. *That,* is letting the players police the game, and that is ok. I guess the problem is that we’ll need to rely on players to do that, answer the call, fight. If the player hitting Bedard isn’t going to answer for that hit, we’ll end up with a Steve Moore incident.
If you want these big hits, and you want players to police the game, then **you** ***should*** **have to fight someone two seconds later.** That is how we keep our skill guys safe! This is why McSorely went to LA with Gretzky, to keep him safe. Like I said, its always been this way.
In that regard, I don’t think the NHL has changed much, we still have a group of players on the roster to protect the skill guys. I think the problem lies in how these incidents are penalized. If you lay a big hit on a skill, get jumped and have to fight, we need those penalties to offset somehow. Otherwise, the players *cannot* police the game, and we are right back to were we started with the instigator penalty problem.
I don’t know what the solution is. I agree with Torts to some extent. I think players should police the game. I also think the refs should police the game too. We need both.
The question is, how do we have the players and the refs police the game at the same time, because to some degree, the two our operating with a different set of rules. That is the real problem.
M17CH
Luke Hughes has been absolutely lit up twice because he’s going in not bracing for contact at all. He’s going to get hurt, and it will be his fault if he doesn’t change his habits.
It’s like he thinks that just because he has inside position the other players will just give him possession. Forecheckers hit defensemen, that’s how it works.
PagingDrTobaggan
This is the second or third time Luke has let up before the whistle and been blasted. Hopefully, he has learned his lesson. I thought Hathaway’s hit was unnecessary, but not a major penalty and definitely not a misconduct.
Th;dr-no. Torts is not wrong.
Substantial-Big5497
Americans win Calder Cup in AHL and John has been spot on about the game. No need to doubt him now. How many players forget the fundamental to keep your head up?
47 Comments
Absolutely not. He’s spot on
He’s correct
That’s definitely true. NHL these days ain’t so physical league as it was back in the 90s.
Having watched hockey for many years he is %100 correct there is very little hitting in the NHL now.
That’s an accurate statement. The fans whine about every hit lately too.
Absolutely dead on
That was an illegal hit – for a 2 min penalty. Not 5 and a game.
The thing that bothers me the most is the inconsistency
He’s right and unfortunately it starts at the bottom. They’ve taken hitting out of almost all of minor hockey so people aren’t learning how to absorb or throw a hit until they are 15-16 years old. Learning how to take a hit from a 10 year old who is 75 pounds is far less punishing then learning how to take a hit from a 16 year old who is basically a man and weighs 200 lbs
Body checking begins in the playoffs, players take the regular season off.
The bigger problem is that players have now gotten so used to not being hit that they aren’t ready for it. Players need to do more work on being ready for hits so they don’t get head injuries.
I want to add that this is the 2nd time this season that Luke let up his skating while chasing the puck into the boards and got nailed by a vet. I think the first one was against the Caps. He stayed down on the ice for minute or 2 trying to regain his bearings. I really really hope the coaches work with him on how to avoid that bc we ABSOLUTELY CANNOT afford to lose him to injuries.
This is 100% accurate.
I get what people want to get away from and I think it is fine to want to distance yourself from the idea of gratuitous violence.
But the game needs to be tough still. Hits, corner work, driving to the net, battles in the house. It is these components combined with the speed that makes hockey so unique and difficult and the best sport in the world.
So much of this is missing from the modern game and there are a lot of hyper skilled players inundating the league *coughMitchMarnerWilliamNylandercough* that are regular season individual stats highlight reels but are reduced to boys playing a man’s game in the playoffs.
Its better that you need to hit clean, seems like rick tocchets trying to make our boys take the body
Ya sadly… I get reducing fighting but hitting is just sad. Bettman needs to go and daly. The amount of players that try to jump away when a hit is coming then getting themselves injured from knee on knee or something seems to be going up. I don’t wanna watch an “all skill” nhl with no contact. All guts no glory baby.
I wish someone would hit this mothertrucker
I’m wondering how many less concussions are diagnosed in the league as a result though. I’ve had a few concussions in my younger days and I would much rather break my leg than suffer from years of migraine headaches again. Yeah hit can be/were fun to watch but it does lead to more injuries.
They wear pads and helmets for a reason
Tough to see this written down and spelled out. Too real.
I don’t like how a good clean hit warrants this massive overreaction, but pretending that playing physical in hockey isn’t necessary to win the Stanley Cup? That’s funny.
“No hit league” lol we all watch the same sport yeah?
I know there are big differences in longevity, speed, skill etc. but high school and college are played way more physically than the NHL these days. I constantly see guys with heads down/puck in between skates that would get absolutely run over at the amateur level but almost never happens in the NHL.
Hockey in general…
I love Torts.
Common Torts W
That’s what they get for trying to turn into a fuckin euro league
It’s how the game is being taught at the youth level. We still teach checking but are teaching when not to check just as much. Some of it makes sense. Throwing hits to punish and not as a play on the puck are dumb. It takes you out of the play and puts players at risk and out of the play just to inflict pain.
As a parent with a kid in hockey and a guy that grew up with a game that was taught and looked a lot different, I’m conflicted.
On one hand it’s a player safety issue and it’s make me feel slightly better about putting my kid on the ice. As a guy who grew up playing a more physical game I think torts is right. The next generations isn’t ready for big hits.
I’m not advocating for it but the game could be played without checking. It would be safer than what’s going on now. Either play physical or don’t.
I suspect it isn’t even so much that guys don’t know how to take a hit anymore as it is that guys want to draw penalties as much as possible nowadays and so they put themselves in bad spots/positions willingly
But wasn’t he also pushed into him?
He ain’t wrong. It annoys me to no extent to watching a player get hit or even just have the hockey stick touch their hands and then be up in arms for no penalty. Just play the puck until you hear a whistle.
The league will always evolve adapt whatever you want to call it. It keeps evolving. Torts is right. A player like Marner etc wouldn’t get a second look based on the size of players in the 90’s. And I mean players weren’t always drafted based on skill. More kill than skill. Not saying the was no skill in the 90’s there was. It was just very diluted.
He’s 100% correct.
The league needs to be no-hit/clean hit, because it’s bigger, faster and stronger than the league was in the 90s.
It’s easy to say when you’re behind the bench but we can’t have a sport where people are risking their lives and careers every time they take a shift on the ice.
Bad hits need to go.
Players weren’t ready for hits back then too, that’s why they’d get fucking rocked and injured.
Less concussions and less dirty hits overall is nice.
No he’s not wrong
Tom Brady agrees!
And they should make it a no-hit league. I dont see the benefits of keeping it.
Contact sports are becoming less and less contact. Within the next 100 years all contact sports will be banned where they can’t take the contact out. Combat sports will be banned. Football will be banned. Hockey will be no contact. Soccer won’t allow headers or sliding tackles. The entire world will be stuck with sports like tennis and cricket and baseball etc. As a whole, society will be completely soft unless we end that shit right now.
Torts is correct. This league has gotten too soft
I miss Kronwall 🙁
i agree but much like the saying “nobody wants to work anymore” people have BEEN saying this statement for a while now. its not nearly as physical as it was as (thankfully) we are out of the enforcer era of the game, but its far from a “no-hitting” league. people thought when all the russians came into the league that it was getting too technical and “pretty”… 30 years ago.
i think it can be a lost art, and is not the center focus but i mean look at guys like lindros and any other big guy from back then, its hit or miss (no pun intended) whether or not they can actually take a hit, so i think its been this way for a little longer than what torts thinks
BIGGEST ISSUE IS: these kids are entering the league at 18, getting drafted and scouted much younger than that. they only played hockey where hitting was allowed for like THREE YEARS before they played in the NHL and lets be honest… nobody was actually hitting any skater good enough to get into the league in minors, they were zipping past everyone. i know people used to hit much younger on hockey, and imo thats a good thing. players learn how to play the game correctly that way.
bottom line we need to stop the goons running up players who hit their teammate with a good hockey check. thats part of the game. get over it and play. now if its your all ✯ and they get injured i understand, but let people fucking hit without having to drop the gloves afterwards… i wouldnt wanna run up someone if i KNEW i had to get a fighting major afterwards cuz of the “nobody can hit our teammates” mentality that is rampant today
I miss when you could hit someone, they got up just fine and a fight DIDN’T start right after.
As a Caps fan – you take the game misconducts of Hathaway with the good he brings to the team. You don’t whine about it afterwards like a little wimp, Mr. Tortorella. The Flyers absolutely knew what kind of player they were getting when they signed Garnet.
If every hit will lead to a penalty, stoppage of play, fight, or anything else that will slow down momentum of play. You may as well take out hitting altogether. No reason to put time and effort to policing hits and enforcing safe hits when the majority league is streets ahead in its skill and creativity.
This was a much longer quote.
I agree with some of what he’s said. However, he contradicts himself at one point. Here is more of the quote:
>“I’m not trying to run down the league. **I just think we’ve taken away the policing of the game from the players.** **I do, with all the new rules, we’ve taken away the policing of the game. It should belong to the players.**
>
>“It’s a fast game, which is fantastic. The skill in the game is fantastic. I think some of the rule changes we’ve made have improved the game. But I just don’t think we should take the foundation of the National Hockey League out. Hits are allowed.
>
>“Back in the day, and I’m not trying to go way back, but you have to learn how to take a hit. That’s a big play in winning games, is taking a hit to make a play and be embraced to take these hits. **And if you do have a big hit, you shouldn’t have to fight someone two seconds later because it’s a big hit. That’s what I don’t get.**
So which is it? Are we letting players police the game or not?
Are we seeing big *clean* hits called as a penalty? Yes. Its seems to me, that there are hits in this league that are on paper clean, but will get called as a penalty because they are too violent. And that is wrong, a clean hit is a clean hit. It shouldn’t become a penalty just because it was too big, and that is what we are seeing.
And, where are officials drawing a line? Its like a sliding scale of legality.
Now, when it comes to the policing of the game, I’m all for it. But if we are going to ask players to do that, we can’t do as torts has done here and bash a guy for fighting a player who just put a giant clean hit on a skill guy.
And, its always been like this. Right now in the league, if someone where to put a big hit on Bedard for example, that dude is gonna have to fight. Full stop. *That,* is letting the players police the game, and that is ok. I guess the problem is that we’ll need to rely on players to do that, answer the call, fight. If the player hitting Bedard isn’t going to answer for that hit, we’ll end up with a Steve Moore incident.
If you want these big hits, and you want players to police the game, then **you** ***should*** **have to fight someone two seconds later.** That is how we keep our skill guys safe! This is why McSorely went to LA with Gretzky, to keep him safe. Like I said, its always been this way.
In that regard, I don’t think the NHL has changed much, we still have a group of players on the roster to protect the skill guys. I think the problem lies in how these incidents are penalized. If you lay a big hit on a skill, get jumped and have to fight, we need those penalties to offset somehow. Otherwise, the players *cannot* police the game, and we are right back to were we started with the instigator penalty problem.
I don’t know what the solution is. I agree with Torts to some extent. I think players should police the game. I also think the refs should police the game too. We need both.
The question is, how do we have the players and the refs police the game at the same time, because to some degree, the two our operating with a different set of rules. That is the real problem.
Luke Hughes has been absolutely lit up twice because he’s going in not bracing for contact at all. He’s going to get hurt, and it will be his fault if he doesn’t change his habits.
It’s like he thinks that just because he has inside position the other players will just give him possession. Forecheckers hit defensemen, that’s how it works.
This is the second or third time Luke has let up before the whistle and been blasted. Hopefully, he has learned his lesson. I thought Hathaway’s hit was unnecessary, but not a major penalty and definitely not a misconduct.
Th;dr-no. Torts is not wrong.
Americans win Calder Cup in AHL and John has been spot on about the game. No need to doubt him now. How many players forget the fundamental to keep your head up?
Torts is never wrong