Why Raising the Body Checking Age Makes Sense

My latest Calgary Herald column looks at the decision to raise the body checking age in minor hockey from 11 to 13:

In this era of helicopter parenting and bubble-wrapped kids, there’s a growing pushback against those who are trying to remove all risk from children’s lives. Indeed, there’s growing evidence that such efforts may be doing children more harm than good. For example, the annual report card from Active Healthy Kids Canada once again gives this country poor grades when it comes to physical activity. Canada gets a D- for overall physical activity and a D in the category of active transportation.
This year’s report card focuses on the fact that where kids might once have walked or biked to school, today, they are much more likely to be driven there by their parents. Last year’s report card, which offered a similarly pessimistic view of children’s physical activity, focused on how parental fear is keeping kids from playing outdoors.
So clearly this is a problem. But as much as we need to be attuned to that problem, let’s avoid a diagnosis where it isn’t warranted.
The decision to change the age of the introduction of bodychecking in minor hockey seems to have struck many as precisely this sort of impulse: that we’re watering down our beloved game in yet another misguided and distorted attempt to shield children from risk. The fact that it involves the game of hockey, and all the passion and emotion that entails in this country, has raised the temperature of this debate even further.
Hockey is a game of speed and skill, but it is also a rough game. There may be those who would seek to remove all roughness from the game, which would indeed fundamentally change its character and therefore should be resisted. But the fierce opposition to changing the age at which bodychecking is introduced is misplaced.
Last month, Hockey Alberta made the decision to remove bodychecking from the peewee level (11 and 12 year olds) and have it introduced instead at the bantam level (13 and 14 year olds). Last year, Hockey Calgary’s consideration of the change led to an intense pushback, which eventually led to the resignation of the association’s president.
This time around, however, there’s a firmer commitment to this change. Shortly after Hockey Alberta’s decision, Hockey Canada voted to implement the change nationally. Saskatchewan was the only dissenter, but they are clearly not alone in their opposition. Don Cherry used his national platform on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada to denounce the decision. In Manitoba, one entrepreneur is already planning to launch a peewee league separate from Hockey Manitoba that would include bodychecking. Such a response seems rather disproportionate. Why, for example, is there no denouncing the fact that there is no bodychecking at the atom level (nine and 10 year olds)? Why is there no push to create a separate league for atom players that includes bodychecking? No bemoaning the coddling of these children?
Presumably, everyone seems to accept that there is a line to be drawn between players who are too young to bodycheck and those who are able to handle it. We are merely adjusting that line. The adjustment appears even less dramatic when you consider that up to 2002, peewee — and therefore bodychecking itself — started at age 12.
Moreover, though, the evidence indicates that this is the right decision. Two separate studies out of the University of Calgary examined the experience in Alberta, where bodychecking began at age 11, and in Quebec, where the bodychecking age has long been 13.
The studies found that the rate of injury at the peewee level was far higher in Alberta, and that the rate of injury at the bantam level was more or less the same in both provinces. That certainly undercuts the argument that moving up the age only delays injuries and seems to offer proof that this change will result in fewer net injuries.
This is neither a fundamental change to the game of hockey, nor an irrational attempt to protect children from risk. It is a minor adjustment aimed at reducing injuries that will hopefully lead to more kids playing hockey. Given the concern about inactivity among Canadian kids, that strikes me as a win-win.