I used to get ESPN Sports Classics channel and get lost in an old random Canadian Football League game. The year of the game would have been 1987 or 1988 and it would have been whatever game the CBC wouldn’t have been able to air — the rebroadcaster 30 years later wouldn't have had the rights to CBC”s archive of games. You’d see a collection of players that are now grizzled old coaches, stadiums with Astroturf looking like a painted parking lot and cringe-worthy fans’ fashion choices.
Despite the fact you would see more huge, uncomfortable-looking shoulder pads than the entire female cast on the original series’ of Dynasty and Knots Landing, you’d see something else. Players that era weren’t flying around with their heads trying to tackle the ball carrier. The quarterbacks weren’t nearly as roughed up as they are today, and the blitzing teams of the days wouldn’t have a plan B that was ‘OK, so you didn’t get to him before he threw the ball, just roll on his leg as you’re falling down and knock him out for a few months.’
As I wrote that sentence, three quarterbacks in the National Football League sustained MCL injuries and are out for the season. Another was concussed, told training staff the capital of Georgia was Jupiter and The Tonight Show was hosted by Donald Duck, and then was allowed back out onto the field because he’s the only one that still remembers the most frequently-used parts of the Brothers Karamazov-sized playbook.
The CFL has much of the same issue when it comes to player safety. Most teams are on their second or third string quarterback by the latter part of the season and those that aren’t we call ‘Grey Cup contenders’. Leading with hits to the head aren’t punished nearly enough. On The crushing hit from behind on a downed Buffalo Bills player Tre’Davious White gave New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski a one game suspension… and no fine. Hey, Gronk, take an extra bye week in December.
But it’s not just the NFL where this is happening. Don Cherry made a fair amount of money selling videos of hits that would mostly be illegal in today’s NHL. It would be fun to watch a Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em video from 1993 with Saskatchewan Junior Hcokey League president Bill Chow and get his take on how many games suspension each hit would warrant in 2017.
But as we become more and more aware of the dangers of concussions and the seriousness of all injuries that come with contact in sports, there are measures being done that are steps forward. Tackling is taught well at Estevan Minor Football with players being taught to tackle the body and not lead with the head; the same with minor hockey, where hitting isn’t allowed until bantam – ages 13 to 14. How many legs and arms are now unbroken, and how many pre-teens don’t have permanent limps and creaking joints already because of this? Who can count?
I’ve seen more ambulances at kids’ sporting events that I care to count and I’m not sure I want to see any more. Kids are going to have accidents and collisions and not do things in as quite a co-ordinated way as a careful trained hitter in a more senior league. And the fewer ambulances and hushed silences I hear, the better.
