Hockey's Hypocrisy

So now we have two victims in the Ontario Junior Hockey League's decision to suspend Michael Liambas for the remainder of the season and playoffs thus ending the twenty year olds junior hockey career. The other victim of course is 16 year old Ben Fanelli who lies in a Hamilton hospital with among other things a fractured skull.
After watching video of "the hit" over and over again I am left with several impressions. After spending some thirteen seasons as a play by play announcer with junior hockey teams I have seen plenty of hard hits resulting in injuries. On March 1st, 1987 I watched as Brad Hornung of the Regina Pats was hit from behind leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. I don't recall any life time suspensions from that hit. Perhaps there should have been but thats another story.
What's troubling to me in this latest incident is "what role does junior and professional hockey play in this? It's easy to suspend one player, to make him look like the bad guy and then just move on until the next incident occurs. That has been the history of hockey. One player died recently from a hockey fight. There was a great outcry for a fleeting moment. Then forgotten until the next incident.
Both junior and professional hockey need to take a hard look at themselves. Hitting is encouraged, well more than that hitting is expected. Hard noses coaches demand that the players play it tough. Fans themselves rise from their seats with excitement at a thunderous body check and then quieten down just a bit when a player happens to be injured. And in this incident Ben Fanelli was injured far more than anyone could have predicted. But should Liambas be the only one to take the bullet. In a hockey world where if the coach says hit you hit, and if you don't you are gone from the team and most likely your junior career is over.
Then there is the issue of the helmets. Junior players have these helmets on their head so loosely that they fall off on almost any contact. Why? Because the looser the helmets are, the more quickly the players can throw them off so they can engage in a hockey fight. There isn't a coach behind the bench in junior hockey that doesn't know that and there isn't a coach in junior
hockey that will do anything about stopping it. Making sure their players have the helmet properly fitted and strapped on
tightly. Could you imagine a football player having his helmet so loose it popped off on almost any contact just in case he
might get into a fight.
Looking at the replay of the Liambas hit on Fanelli again, you are left wondering how serious the injuries would have been
if the helmet had stayed on. Perhaps the league should be issuing a two minute minor penalty to any player who's helmet falls off during play. Not likely that will happen.
No the OHL will be satisfied to let Michael Liambas take the fall for this one. They'll point to his past history. Already television stations have dug up video of his hit on John Tavares as if to say, see he hits like that all the time. It was just a matter of time before someone got hurt.
I don't believe much in the old case of people being "a product of their environment" but in this case Michael Liambas was and is. A hockey environment that encourages hitting, fighting and all round violence even ahead of the sheer skill of the game.
Little wonder someone got hurt. Little doubt that it won't happen again.