Would putting body checking back into girls’ hockey make it safer for players or would it do more harm than good?

Those who support body checking in girls’ hockey believe that this will teach girls to play with their heads up and prevent a lot of the serious injuries that are happening out on the ice from both accidental and intentional contact. Girls hockey players need to learn how to take a hit, but does that mean that they need to body check too?

I don’t think that body checking should be a part of female hockey, but I do think that girls hockey players need to be taught how to take a hit properly, as well as how to initiate body contact properly. Girls are getting hit and getting hurt because of they have never been taught how to protect themselves from body contact.

Girls need to play “heads-up” hockey and putting body checking back into the game seems like the easiest way to teach this skill to players. The theory is that once you get run over in mid-ice or get the wind knocked you from a bone-crushing check against the boards, you’ll “learn” to keep your head up to protect yourself.

That might be true, but the reality is the majority of injuries in girls’ hockey are happening from incidental contact, and are not from intentional body checking. Girls’ hockey players are not getting hurt because their opponents are trying to hip-check them through the boards or lining them up at the blue-line for the big hit. Girls are getting hurt battling for the puck along the boards and in front of the net.

Girls are getting hurt by this incidental contact because they lack the awareness that they are going to get hit. When a male hockey player is skating down the ice, he is always thinking, “I am going to get hit”. For most girls, this thought rarely crosses their minds. They tend to skate with their heads down, looking and “fishing” for the puck, as opposed to playing the heads-up style of hockey that is critical for survival in the men’s game. If you aren’t playing with your head up, you are oblivious to what’s going on around you and aren’t going to be ready for contact.

Once girls hockey players are aware of the fact that they might get hit, they have 3 options for dealing with contact:

1) Get out of the way: This is always the safest and smartest decision, but there is not always the time and space for this to be possible.

2) Take the full force of the hit: This is the passive option and the most dangerous one. Unfortunately, most girls are not taught how to deal with contact properly and this is the option that they take most often.

3) Initiate contact yourself: This is the active option and your safest one if you aren’t in a position to be able to avoid the contact entirely. Instead of letting yourself get flattened against the boards, taking a step into the oncoming player and leaning into them will decrease the amount of force that your opponent can deliver with the check. Actively moving into the check will go a long way to protecting you from sustaining an injury with contact.

Before you even step on the ice, you need to be aware that there is going to be contact. Once you hit the ice, you have to play with their heads up to know when contact is coming. And when that contact happens, be ready and actively move into contact instead of being passive.