The Puck Stops Here

On March 19th, it a game in San Jose, Kurtis Foster of the Minnesota Wild broke his left leg in a race for a puck on a delayed icing call. This has sparked debate about whether or not the NHL should institute no touch icing where icing is called whenever the puck is shot down the ice in an icing situation immediately instead of when a defensive player recovers it. The idea is that this would save a few races for relatively meaningless loose pucks which often can result in big hits that sometimes cause injury. Although the NHL GMs have shot down this proposal, I would support it. It seems the GMs would rather spend their time trying to figure out how to increase scoring instead.

In the game, Foster and Torrey Mitchell of the San Jose Sharks raced down the ice for the loose puck and Mitchell took Foster into the boards breaking his leg (for the record San Jose won the game 4-3 in a shootout).

It is reported on a San Jose message board (assist to Kukla's Korner for pointing out this story) that Minnesota flew in Foster's fiance while he was still being treated in the hospital in San Jose. That is a classy move, but is it legal under the CBA?

The CBA says that all benefits to players must be spelled out in their contract (with the exception of "normal hockey practises"). This meant that the Montreal Canadiens could not fly player's families to Florida for Christmas even though the Habs were in the midst of a road trip and were going to play there after the holiday. At the same time, road trips with mothers or fathers of players are considered a "normal hockey practise" and are allowed. Is it a normal hockey practise to fly out families to see injured players when they get hurt on a road trip? It rarely happens that an injured player cannot get home before surgery or an injury rehab, so I would argue this is not a normal situation. The mere presence of a message board post outlining the story and calling the team classy for doing it shows that it's not normally done. I think this situation is one that technically the CBA does not allow (though we likely won't see a major issue made about it because it makes the NHL look stupid). How is flying family to San Jose to see an injured player different from flying families to Florida, when the team will already be there? Neither is spelled out in a standard player contract.

The problem is that the CBA overlegislates the NHL. Things would be better with fewer restrictions on what teams can and cannot do in the unique situations like this that come up during a season. Flying Kurtis Foster's fiance out is a good thing for Minnesota to do, but my reading of the CBA says it should not be allowed (am I right? I think the debate comes down to whether or not this is a "standard hockey practise"). It certainly should be allowed, but as the rules are written I think it isn't. That said, it appears clear that nobody is going to make a big stink about Minnesota doing the right thing regardless of what the CBA says.