The Daily Faceoff Show: USA Hockey may implement neck guards after death of Teddy Balkind

Credit: St. Luke's School

A week after teenage hockey player Teddy Balkind died after a freak accident on the ice, USA Hockey is looking at making changes to hockey equipment requirements.

Balkind, 16, died shortly after his neck was cut by a skate blade during an accidental collision.

On the Daily Faceoff Show Thursday morning, Frank Seravalli spoke on what could lie ahead.

“USA Hockey, the governing body of the sport here in the country, has gathered for their annual winter meetings in Florida, and it’s certainly a topic of conversation and a big one at that. Their protective safety equipment committee that’s meeting, one of the things that’s on the table is making neck guards mandatory for all youth players up to age 18. There’s just been lots of different studies and information the committee is gathering at the moment.

Which piece of equipment actually works? There’s testing that needs to be done. They don’t want to set up a situation where some players skirt it and simply just have a piece of cloth on their neck. They found there’s some pieces of equipment out there that could be more detrimental when wearing, where the skate blade actually bounces off and could do more harm, depending on the type of equipment.

They’re trying to get to the bottom of it. It’s something that is high priority.”

You can listen to more below.

Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.