Friday was a beautiful day, until this bombshell was dropped from Sportsnet, which says the OHL will have no body checking for this upcoming season:
“She (Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s Minister of sport) said that removing purposeful physical contact from the game was a necessary step to preventing the spread of COVID-19.”- Canadian Press
With no body checking allowed for this upcoming season, the season should just be cancelled. How are teams in the NHL supposed to evaluate their own prospects, and upcoming prospects that will be draft eligible for 2021 with no body checking? Scoring more than likely will be through the roof for the 2020-21 season.
This will have a trickle down effect to the NHL/AHL next season. Some prospects will be slated to join the ranks of the NHL/AHL as early as next season, and this could hinder the prospects development. It’s never easy to cancel a season, especially with a lot on the line. However, it’s just too hard to probably evaluate any prospect this season in the OHL.
Flyers prospects in Tyson Foerster (Barrie Colts) and Zayde Wisdom (Kingston Frontenacs) shall enjoy big seasons. Foerster is a sniper and will shoot accurately from anywhere, whereas Wisdom will park himself in front of the net and no one can move him.
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In the end the goalies are the ones that most likely will suffer. They are really going to get shelled on a nightly basis. Covid-19 continues to hamper leagues throughout the world. Hopefully this ends sooner rather than later.
If you play, you must play game of hockey how it is played, or not play at all!
May as well take blocking out of football too. No check hockey is not going to be popular.