Full Facial Protection - Is there really any choice?

We were a poor family growing up.  We were a proud family growing up.  In our case, both statements were true.  These two statements have a whole lot to do with the way I view the world.

The Peninsula Panthers were in Esquimalt on Sunday afternoon and my day looked like many others where the Panthers play on the road.  I met Coach Tippett at the friendly confines of the Panorama Recreation Centre almost three hours before the puck was set to drop and after greetings, we each went back and forth from the coaches room that doubles as an equipment room to my truck which was parked only feet from the exit.  It is a routine that we have been doing for the past three years together since Brad arrived on the scene in the summer of 2016.  Not much was said, there was no need for that.  We knew what to do and we knew how to do it.

The truck was loaded and we both jumped in and began our trek South heading down the Pat Bay Highway for the Archie Browning Arena.  We shared a laugh or two, discussed our lineup and theirs, and Brad began to text as he always does.  I might just hide his phone on him one day just to see what he would do for the next 24 hours without it.  We turned left into the parking lot at the back of the rink, by the McDonald's and then slowly came to a stop just outside the back door/players entrance.  We unloaded the equipment and then I moved the truck into the back parking lot trying to pick the most secluded spot where I would not pick up any dents over the duration of the game.  The lot was quiet as it usually is on a Sunday afternoon and I nestled into an end spot that was available and was feeling pretty good about things.

We knew we would be in for a tough game as it is every time we venture into the Archie Browning and I sat and thought about that a bit in the truck while I listened to some tunes.  Several minutes later the boys came out to the back lot and were completely oblivious to the fact that I was even there.  I watched them as they played games with the soccerball and I thought about what a great sport the game of hockey is.  I thought about how it allows all of these young men to belong to something, to be part of a group.  I believe that every single person wants to belong to something and this desire can lead young people on the right track and it can lead them on the wrong track.  The ball bounced from one to another and the boys were loud, really loud.  I thought that they looked like a confident and close-knit group and I loved to see that.  Coach and his assistants were doing a great job and I thought about how this little game of soccer where these young men were enjoying each other and the time they shared was all about the culture with the Club.  I have always believed that it is not necessary to get the best players but to get the best people.  It was showing.

Once the boys left the parking lot and slid back through the players' entrance I decided to take a walk on a day where the rain had stopped and the sun was beginning to peak through the grey sky.  And at the end of the walk, I went into Serious Coffee in the mall by the Archie Browning and had a coffee and muffin and read whatever material was available at the coffee shop.  Time went by and it was just ten minutes before the puck was set to drop and so I cleaned my table, thanked the young lady behind the counter one last time and headed over to watch what I thought was going to be a competitive game.

Just outside the Arena I was stopped by a lady who was tugging away on one last cigarette before the game.  She let me know how much she enjoyed the articles on the Panthers website but was a bit dismayed that the article was not up quite as quickly on Saturday as she had hoped.  She told me that she liked to get up and read it over a morning coffee.  We both had a chuckle and I said that I would take care of this problem moving forward.

I walked inside and at the end of the Arena was Cougars' General Manager Tony Carlson.  Tony is one of the good guys in the VIJHL and a great representative of the Victoria Cougars.  He is as sociable as they come but he is also a man of his word and someone I trust a lot.  We discussed a few issues.  We have had a robust rivalry over the years and I make no bones about it.....I am not the biggest fan of the Cougars on the ice, there is certainly no love lost.  But in the boardroom we are almost always on the same page, we see things in the same light.  During our conversation Tony mentioned the Panthers website and also mentioned that it was time for a "Pete's Ponderings" and so I thought I would take a couple moments today to share my thoughts. 

When I was growing up we did not have much of anything.  One day my dad arrived home from work and told me to get my skates and we were heading to Adams Arena in Lethbridge where we lived.  I had an old pair of skates that were three or four sizes too big, in fact I used a bunch of toilet paper stuffed in the toes so that I could skate.  I wasn't too sure what was going to happen next but my dad seemed a bit excited.  We jumped in the car after we ate and on the way he told me that I was going to be playing goal in a game that night for the Lethbridge Maroons.  I was 13 years old and had never played before.  He said that his boss at work was the coach and they needed a goalie because their goalie had packed it in and my Dad said that I could do it.  This sounded like fun.  We arrived and were directed to an upstairs area at the rink where a bunch of goaltending equipment owned by Lethbridge Minor Hockey was piled on a table.  I picked out some goal pads, a chest protector, a blocker and catcher and a cage and went downstairs.  The coach who was a pretty good fellow was named Rick and he directed me into the dressing room where 15 other kids were getting ready for the game.  I took off my coat and shoes and put the equipment on over my clothes as we could not afford any other gear.  The players looked at me in a strange way!  I had no armpads, cup, or hockey pants.  I didn't have a hockey bag, only an old pair of skates and a goalie stick.  But I wasn't embarrased, I knew that our family could not afford anything else but I was playing hockey and it was a great feeling. 

Sixty minutes of hockey action showed me that I was a brutal goalie and everyone in the rink, including my new teammates could easily see that fact.  I got lit up!  The bruises began to rack up but we were proud and I never complained or even said anything to my Dad.  I knew we could not afford equipment and so it was pointless to ask for it.  Five or six games into my tenure as the new "Stopper", one of the parents showed up with an old pair of hockey pants for me to wear.  I don't think they helped a whole lot but they made me look more like a player when I slid them over my blue jeans.

The following September I showed up for my 2nd year on the Maroons and the returning players groaned when I graced the entrance of the dressing room.  I think that Rick groaned as well but he kept his groan a bit more reserved which I very much appreciated.  But something had happened over the summer.  I had grown and although we did not have money to go to Hockey School, the puck seemed to hit me a whole lot more.  During the season I was brought up to the Rep team and that year I was the Lethbridge Minor Hockey Most Improved Player. 

It was 1970 or '71 and goalie masks were coming in.  I still used the cage because it was supplied but almost every other goalie in Lethbridge Minor Hockey used masks.  One day my dad came home and told me he had found a mask at a garage sale and he bought it for something like a dime or a quarter.  It was small.  It only covered my face but not my head but if my dad said it was good, then it was good.  I put it on in the basement and he asked me how I liked it.  I told him I could not really see down by my feet that well, the eyes were too small.  That was not a problem.  We went downstairs to his shop and he took a jigsaw and cut out both eyes so the hole was bigger.  He asked me once again and I said it seemed better but not quite there.  He cut the eyes out so big that there was hardly any mask left.  I picked up a puck and the puck fit through the eye holes but my Dad said it would never happen, not to worry.  It was the early 1970's and it was a different generation.  Things were different back then!

I made the Lethbridge Colts Rep Team the following season and during that year I was hit in the mask many, many times.  And I was cut quite a number of times.  At one point the mask split right in the middle of the forehead and I was leaking quite a bit.  I went over to the bench and my dad came down and said not to worry, he would fix it at home later.  I went back in without a mask and although I was not all that comfortable, I recall the Coach telling the boys to keep the shots down.  It was the early 1970's and it was a different generation.  Things were different back then!

My dad used a piece of metal and some rivets to hold the mask together and let me know that it was all fine.  Every time I was hit in the mask in that area the metal caused me to leak. I wore the mask in Junior B when I played for the Lethbridge Native Sons and I look back at some of the photos and just remember how different things were.

Before last season the Panthers' Organization decided that we would go to full facial protection and did just that.  We heard about it for the first couple of months, our players taking most of the chirps.  The South teams became used to seeing it and it was a non-factor when we played them.  The North teams....not so much.  They would lose their minds every time out, probably because we did not see them quite as much.  I watched as players on other teams would take facial injuries and I wondered why others would not make the move.  We were the only Club in the Province to make the change at that point.

This past summer BC Hockey mandated the use of full facial protection for all of Junior B in the Province.  At first there were a couple of loud voices against the move but as the summer moved along the noise grew in intensity.  And finally, all of the other Junior B teams in British Columbia started legal action to have the ruling turfed to the side of the road.  We were not part of the action however, the Peninsula Panthers were the only ones.  I thought back about one of the comments from one of our players a year earlier.  Skyler Diamond-Burchuck asked me why all the push back and that making the move to full facial was not a big deal as most were making it out to be.  Skyler let me know that he would wear full facial no matter what the rules were.  I wish I had been that sharp when I was playing!

A judge heard the case on December 5th in Vancouver and on December 19th a decision in the matter will be rendered.  I highly doubt that this will be overturned, at least this is the early indications.  And why would it!

The players are far safer right now than they were last season.  Fighting is almost at zero.  Facial and dental injuries are almost at zero.  Penalties in the VIJHL are down 15%.  I don't hear anything about the facial protection any longer, we have moved on and the winners are the players.  They don't have to lose an eye or a tooth or take a bunch of needless stitches to prove they are "Tough."  It's no longer part of the game.  

What people are missing is how much the game has changed and that this rule change was needed.  Back when I played at Adams Arena in Lethbridge there was no glass along the sides of the rink and there was only a screen on both ends.  The sticks were wooden and did not have the punch on a shot like today.  Coaches never told players to clear the puck off the glass.  Anything over board height was flying into the stands.  Now most rinks have six foot glass along the sides, that is the case here at the Panorama where we play our home games.  And for at least three decades or longer, players have been coached to clear the puck high and off the glass.  Ask a defenceman, who is trying to hold the line, where pucks are flying by him and the answer will be at the height of his face.  Full facial will protect in circumstances like this.  A ton of beer league players who were coached this way in Minor or Junior Hockey now play the game the same way, high off the glass.  Pucks are screaming by players' faces every single night in every single rink in this Country.  I watch as beer leaguers play without full facial.  They are now parents of children and people who need to be at work the day after their hockey game to bring home the bacon for their families, for the people who mean the most to them.

Full facial protection, there really is/was no choice if the people running our game truly have the safety of the players as the main priority and I believe that on December 19th the Provincial Court of British Columbia will see things exactly this way.  BC Hockey made the right move.  It is 2018 and it's a different generation.  Things are different now!

UPDATE:
December 19, 2018
Vancouver, British Columbia 

Madame Justice Dewitt-Van Oosten provided lawyers for BC Hockey and for the Junior "B" Teams with an oral decision.  It took her 45 minutes.  She will be releasing written reasons in the next several weeks.  The bottom line was that she dismissed the Petition forwarded by the Junior "B" Teams in the Province and upholded the fact that BC Hockey had the right to mandate full facial protection.

The Peninsula Panthers Organization applaud this decision by the Madame Justice.

Pete Zubersky, Governor
Peninsula Panthers Hockey Club