Sports

NHL players resist mandatory eye guards

Three cheers for Brandon Dubinsky, the Rangers’ player rep, for not pretending that the issue of whether to make visors mandatory in the NHL is grounded in a constitutional privilege relating to privacy and freedom of choice.

“You know, one of the most fun things about the NHL was getting to take my visor off,” Dubinsky told Slap Shots on Friday. “One of things I looked most forward to about playing in the NHL was that I could take my visor off and now that I’m here, there’s no way I’d want to go back and have to put one on.

“I guess I’m stubborn, but that’s the way I feel about it.”

The debate over making visors mandatory was reignited within the reactionary NHL after Chris Pronger was hit on the outside of his right eye by Mikhail Grabovski’s stick on a follow-through in Philadelphia on Monday. It is believed the NHLPA, which long has argued for individual choice on the matter of the protective half-shield, is preparing to conduct a poll of membership on the issue.

The matter, as well as changes to shoulder pads and elbow pads that would restore those pieces of equipment to protective devices rather than weapons, will no doubt become part of next year’s collective bargaining sessions.

“I haven’t taken a poll or anything, but I think there would be a majority in favor of keeping it as a personal choice, though I don’t think there would be much opposition to enacting a rule that guys coming into the league in the future have to keep the visor on,” said Dubinsky, who is in his fifth NHL season. “There’s no way they’re going to tell guys who have played 10 years in the league without one that they have to put one on.

“If there’s a change, they should do it the same way they did with helmets.”

In August 1979, the NHL adopted a rule making mandatory the wearing of helmets, but exempted all players who had signed their first pro contracts prior to June 1 of that year. That grandfather clause allowed Craig McTavish to go bare-headed (if hard-headed, as well) until he retired following the 1996-97 season, three years after winning that final Game 7 faceoff at the Garden in Game 7 against Vancouver.

“My mom wants me to wear [a visor], of course. My dad wants me to wear one, my girl does, and even so does my agent, but I haven’t worn one since I got here, and I don’t want to,” said Dubinsky, who then tapped the wooden bench of an adjacent locker while adding, “I’ve never been injured where I’ve been forced to.

“I understand that wearing one can prevent certain injuries, but there’s no guarantee that because of the angles involved that every injury can be avoided, especially ones resulting from a stick follow-through.

“As players, we can appreciate people wanting to make the game safer for us, but no matter how safe you make the equipment and no matter what kind of rules are made, there are always going to be accidents and there are always going to be injuries,” he said. “You can’t completely eliminate those unless you make it pond hockey.”

Pretty weak and classless move by GM Pierre Gauthier in making assistant coach Perry Pearn the scapegoat for the problems in Montreal, not to mention rather dysfunctional given that Slap Shots has been told that Pearn had received a contract extension no more than a month earlier.

With all due respect to the folks in Atlanta who have suffered professional, financial and emotional distress relating to the loss of their team, there’s little question that the Winnipeg Jets belong in the NHL.

Though while it’s true that Bobby Hull gave Evander Kane his “blessing” to wear the No. 9 that had previously been retired in the Golden Jet’s honor for his play with the WHA Jets, it is as incongruent to see someone else in a Winnipeg uniform wearing that number as it would be to see one of the new Cleveland Browns wearing Jim Brown’s No. 32 or one of the Ravens wearing Johnny Unitas’ Colts No. 19.

Without Hull, there would have been no WHA, and without Hull there would be no NHL team in Winnipeg.

So apparently the lure of recreating the FLY Line with Theo Fleury and Mike York wasn’t enough of an inducement to get Eric Lindros into a Rangers’ uniform for the Dec. 31 alumni outdoor game in Philadelphia, but the burning question is whether Bob Froese and Kjell Samuelsson will exchange sides and uniforms at intermission.

Finally, from Page Six: Which current NHL head coach was called into his principal’s office after telling his seventh-grade science teacher, “I know it’s your job, but I’m not going to dissect that frog?”