Do Not Touch

My biggest weakness as an ice hockey analyst is the fact that I have never played the game at any level. For this reason, I am exceedingly reluctant to make any judgments about things that occur in the split-second context of the run of play. I am therefore not going to express any opinion about the extent of Torrey Mitchell's culpability in the incident that resulted in Minnesota Wild defenseman Kurtis Foster breaking his femur last night in San Jose. (Was there intent to injure? To what extent can what occurred be described as a "collision"?) There have been many views of the situation put forth in the hockey media, with major differences of opinion amongst them--it is not useful for me to add my uninformed opinion to the debate.

What is certain, however, is that the two players were barreling down on the puck in a potential icing situation, one hoping to touch and prevent icing, one hoping the opposite. The requirement for a defending player to touch the puck before icing is called is unnecessary and dangerous--it is rather like rolling a stout wooden wall across a speed skating rink three feet behind the finish line. I am hopeful that perhaps some good will come from this terrible incident, in that the call to abolish the touch-up icing rule in favor of no-touch icing (which is used across the world in amateur hockey) will grow strong enough to make the NHL take notice.

Presumably the touch-up icing rule exists to reward hustle and fearlessness--if you can get down there and touch that puck before a defender, you can keep the play going deep in your opponent's zone--but NHL hockey already rewards hustle and fearlessness. The athletes in our league subject themselves to sufficient danger in the course of the cleanest hockey game; insisting on touch-up icing creates further, useless peril for no real gain.

Proponents of touch-up icing will no doubt suggest that introducing no-touch icing will take the hitting and intensity out of the game. As Colonel Sherman T. Potter would say, "Horse-hockey". If you don't take my word for it, I call as a witness the indomitable Don Cherry of Hockey Night in Canada, who is as old-school as it gets. He's been calling for no-touch icing for years.

Foster's injury isn't the first that this stupid rule has caused. Let's make sure it's the last.