Icing: the NHL’s big no-brainer

There’s a major no-brainer happening in the NHL right now. I’d like to think that the no-brainer here is the need to alter the touch icing rule to prevent injuries. It appears, however, that the real no-brainer is the collective NHL board of governors who refuse to revisit the value of this rule.

I’ve long been of the ‘abolish touch icing’ camp, simply because I think the risk it exposes players to is far greater than the value of the attacking player beating the icing. Sure it can be an exciting play, but I feel that the pro-touch icing folks are exaggerating its value to the game. I hadn’t considered that a compromise was possible to retain that excitement while reducing risk to player safety. Bob McKenzie has discussed the USHL hybrid rule on his blog and I have to admit that it’s a pretty satisfying compromise for me.

In the USHL, a linesman must make a judgment call on any potential icing. If the defending player gets to the faceoff dot or hash marks first or the defender and the attacker arrive there in a dead heat, the whistle is blown immediately for automatic icing.

Now, while I don’t think that the touch icing race is as exciting as its proponents claim, I don’t have a problem with these races if we can minimize the injury risk that currently comes along with it. Seeing now that it doesn’t have to be a black-and-white argument, I would like to see the NHL consider some such alternatives to protect its players.

I think changing this rule is a no-brainer, and I suspect that Al MacInnis, Mark Tinordi, Marty Reasoner, Marco Sturm, Mike Wilson, and now Kurtis Foster might agree with me.