Nice Nose

Jordan Staal had a puck deflected into his face that split his nose wide open in the game against the Devils. He was extremely lucky that puck caught him in the nose and not the eye or we could have been looking at a Brian Berrard situation. I am not sure why the league does not mandate that players wear a shield or at least a half shield. An even better question would be why don't players take it upon themselves to start wearing them. All of these guys played levels of hockey in their younger days that required them to wear full shields at one point and time, so why stop.

In my personal experience wearing a cage inhibits your sight a little bit, but it is a much better option than losing an eye or teeth. Most people that don't wear a mask because they feel it is a tough guy thing not to wear a mask and it makes you less of a man if you do wear one. Let me remind everyone that as recently as 1994 there were still players that didn't wear a helmet for the same reason. Looking back on that now it just seems stupid to play with out a helmet, and i would expect in the next 10 years the same will be thought of playing without a cage. Even now as my competitive hockey days are over i still wear a full cage to play adult league and it has saved me many cuts and bruises. It always surprises me to see how many adult league players who make no money to play hockey feel the need to take there cage off and risk injury just so they can feel like a tough guy.

Anybody else out there that has an opinion on this?