Proponents of rock-em, sock-em hockey took a blow to the old kisser this week when Hockey Canada's board of directors voted to entirely eliminate body checking from the peewee, or under-13, level.
Predictably, the CBC's resident dinosaur, Don Cherry, warned us we would rue the day, voicing the increasingly hard-to-defend position that it's better to teach kids to hit and receive hits at a younger age.
Canada's coaching of hockey at the bantam through junior levels could certainly be improved - we have not won gold at the world juniors since 2009.
But there is nothing to suggest that our hockey program will be hurt by such a move.
As it stood, the only ones being hurt were our kids - and we've known about it for at least 10 years.
A 2003 study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that body checking was associated with 86 per cent of injuries sustained by players nine to 15 years old.
A 2006 study showed that players were 42 per cent more likely to suffer a concussion and 25 per cent more likely to suffer fractures in Ontario leagues where body checking is allowed when compared to Quebec where it was not.
Sadly, we are only just beginning to realize that the effects of a blow or blows to the head can have serious repercussions later in life.
Parents pay attention to this kind of medical research and it's no coincidence that hockey registration has stagnated across Canada for the last two years.
Let's relegate old-time hockey to where it belongs: the past.
