Canada suddenly is focused on hockey with youth workouts and minor-level training camps opening this week. As least for kids, the game will take on a new look with sport's governing body, Hockey Canada, banning body checking for peewee level or kids below age 13. That is akin to Pop Warner Football making tackling illegal for kids 12 and under.
A Vancouver Sun columnist wrote the move was not enough, criticizing minor hockey's "archaic" attitudes about violence that show the game needs to be changed in Canada.
-- Bill Bradley, contributing editor