Bettman's 5 Step Approach

   Its been hard to focus on hockey right now seeing all the world issues, continuing  to have a major effect on so many lives. With the devastating, natural and man made disasters in japan,  I wish the people the best of luck in the coming days. Unfortunately hockey can't stop so here's my look on the Bettman 5 step plan.

      Gary Bettman has been under fire lately from some major sponsors and also Mario Lemieux forcing him to come up with his 5 step approach to reduce the number of head injuries. Facts prove that 17 % of the head injuries are from "illegal hits" so my 3 strike system only applies to that small percentage. That leaves us with 78% of injuries to the head injuries falling under different categorizes.(the NHL left out 5% because they couldn't find the video). This leaving Bettman to come up with a much more complex plan to try and conquer the issue. His plan is as follows; 1st Bettman is acquiring the services of Brendan Shanahan to review the equipment and make the proper changes. I believe this is the main issue. The elbow and shoulder pad seem to cause the most problems on the ice. This has to be examined under a microscope. A lot of people say we need to go back to the old style of pads. This could pose a major problem, the game is bigger, stronger, and faster, if Shanahan can come up with a way to not jeopardize the safety of the player and reduce the amount of hard plastic then this could help.This can not be done over night so maybe look for the effect of this first step in the next season. Secondly, the NHL will be revising the concussion protocol   If player is suspected to have suffered one, he must be removed from the bench for an assessment in a quiet area. I feel this will have no effect. 3rd, is part of the idea I had come up with, seeing a team receive fines and other types of consequences for having a player dishing out head shots. 4th step is the second most important step that is going to take place (aside from the equipment), having safety engineers review the arenas and find a design for the glass. They may even suggest to make the rink larger, not Olympic size but maybe just to adapt to the size of the new NHL. The last step Bettman says the NHL will take is to gather a special group of players (Shanahan, R Blake, Yzerman, Niuewendyk) and have them further review the various injuries and devise any other ways to attack this problem.