Should We Treat Head Shots Like High Sticking?

While hits to the head often times result in devastating injury, it's difficult to punish a player for something that can be seen as simply part of the game. The complex debate about how to treat such events has raged in the sport for years now, and it seems that a simple answer eludes us.

That is, until SBN's Kings blog, Jewels From The Crown, put forth this compelling, yet simple argument. Treat head shots like we treat another common yet dangerous occurrence in the sport: high-sticking.

Here's JFTC:

The other "concern" is that head-shots happen by accident all the time, the game moves fast, the player ducks down, etc.. How can you ban something that happens incidentally all the time?

Easy.

The same way you ban high-sticking. High-sticking, which always involves hitting a player above the shoulder (i.e. neck and head) with your stick, can be a minor, major or match penalty, depending on severity and intent. Or it can be nothing, as with a follow-through of a shot, or if, in the ref's opinion, the player who got hit with the stick was bent over such that the offending player's stick was never "high."

They go on to spell out what a head shots rule could look like in the NHL rulebook, and basing it off of the high-sticking rule, it seems to cover every possibility. It defines a head shot as 'a body check whose point of contact is above the shoulders' , it gives the referee discretion in determining the severity of a hit, and mandates that at least a double-minor penalty be handed out in the case of an injury, just like high-sticking.