WHY "NATIONAL ICE HOCKEY" BANS BODYCHECKING

This following article has been published in "The Hockey News" on several occasions.
It has encouraged "Hockey Canada" to change certain criteria in the minor leagues & put alot of parents on alert for the safety of their children.
Please read the following supplements from that article OR, if you would like to read the entire article- follow the link at the bottom of this post.

When Hockey Canada announced in late May a ban on bodychecking until the bantam age group, I wasn’t sure what to think. That’s because I can appreciate both sides of the argument. I’m inclined to agree with those who believe not allowing bodychecking until the age of 13 will keep our children and their brains safe.
 But most of all, I couldn’t help but think of Matthew Kostuch, and how this ruling came almost six years too late for him. As a 10-year-old playing AAA youth hockey, Kostuch was drilled into the boards, right in front of a referee, by an opposing player who chased him down from the other side of the ice like a predator.
 Six years later, Kostuch can no longer play contact sports of any kind and still suffers from discomfort, nausea and severe headaches. “The game he loves the most,” said his father, Jim, “took him out of the game he loves the most.”
 In 2009-10, Hockey Canada recorded 1,543 concussions, which is a small fraction of how many actually were sustained because that number reflects only the injuries in which an insurance claim was made.
 I bet the vast majority of them were because of predatory hits that go way beyond the rules, like the one Matthew Kostuch took when he was just 10 years old. And that, to me, is why there has to be a ban on bodychecking at the lower age levels. Actually, I’d be all for taking it out completely at every age level below AAA, which is the elite level of hockey in most jurisdictions in North America.
 It’s kind of like fighting. If all NHL fights were the result of two players, who can actually play the game, settling a score in a highly emotional affair, that would be one thing. But once you condone – and promote – fighting, it leaves it open to be used as a tactic, or at the very least, a sideshow.

To read the entire article, follow;    http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/53038-where-does-bodychecking-fit-in-minor-hockey.html