FanHouse

NHL Network is replaying last night's Pens-Flyers game right now, which means I got to watch Braydon Coburn get smacked in the face one more time by a deflected puck -- an injury that was as gruesome as it was avoidable.

After all, as Greg Wyshynski pointed out this morning at Puck Daddy, all it may have taken to keep Coburn in the lineup for Philadelphia was a clear plastic visor, a seemingly simple safety measure that more than a few NHL players continue to eschew despite the obvious benefits. But the question nobody seems to be asking is why so many players not only decline to wear a visor, but why the players as a whole through the NHLPA continue to resist making their use mandatory around the league?

It's not an idle question. After all, Bill Masterton died in Januray 1968 as the result of massive brain injury he suffered when his head hit the ice during a game against the Oakland Seals. Despite this, it was another 11 years before the league mandated the use of helmets in time for the start of the 1979-80 season. Even then, veteran players who had already entered the league without wearing helmets were exempted. The last helmet-less player, Craig MacTavish, didn't leave the ice until the end of the 1996-97 season, almost 30 years after Masterson's death.

Safe to say, when it comes to safety, change comes slow to the NHL. So what's the why? And who is ultimately responsible for an injury like Coburn's, or the one that Bryan Berard suffered that nearly ended his career?

Certainly part of the reason is a sort of Victorian-era code that still lives deep in the heart of the game. Players who choose to wear visors are regularly subject to harassment by their peers on the ice as well as observers off of it (Don Cherry, white courtesy phone). So yes, peer pressure of a sort has something to do with it. And for some players who specialize in the enforcer role, wearing a visor actually makes your job tougher.

When it comes to why some players neglect to wear visors, even though they've spent most of their lives wearing them on the ice, they understand better than the average fan that every safety measure we might take for granted comes with some kind of cost. Like it or not, visors fog up, and like it or not, players who don't wear visors can see the ice surface just a little better than those who do. Now, does this seem trivial? I know it certainly does to me, but I'm not skating on an NHL rink 82+ nights a year to earn a paycheck.

The debate doesn't end with visors, it only starts there. Take a close look at the players on the ice. More often than not, the helmets they wear have protective padding shaved from the inside of the helmet so players can enjoy a more comfortable fit at the expense of a little bit of safety.

If you bought that same CCM helmet off the shelf in your local sporting goods store, you'd also notice that it comes equipped with ear flaps -- a feature that almost all players remove so they can hear better on the ice. Check out the chin straps. Those aren't worn tightly, again, more a question of comfort -- however minor -- over safety.



But the most egregious omission of all might not be any of these. Again, you'll see the vast majority of players take to the ice without wearing a mouthguard. The reason: It's a heck of a lot harder to chatter and shout at your teammates while wearing one. But wearing a mouth guard might deliver more safety bang for the buck than any other piece of equipment. Sure, a mouthguard is going to help a player keep his teeth. Not as widely known, however, is the theory that a mouthguard also may play a role in preventing concussions in that they can help absorb part of the energy of a blow to the head.

Put it all together, and there are a lot of individual decisions that players make when it comes to personal safety. And one thing is for sure: They're not exactly fans of letting anybody from the outside dictate how they go about their business. I'm sure that if you asked a random sample of NHL owners, they'd rather see all sorts of regulations concerning on-ice safety tightened up on the athletes that are the game's greatest asset. As far as I'm concerned, that leaves the responsibility firmly in the hands of individual players and the NHLPA.

So when Braydon Coburn stepped on the ice last night, he took a calculated risk, weighing safety against his overall effectiveness as a player. On this night, he lost. And unfortunate as his injury was, nobody was responsible for that outcome but him.