Visors or Not? *

* also titled "Why I don't Care About My Eyeballs"
** also titled
"Jeepers, Creepers Look What Happened to Stevey Y's Peepers"
The ongoing debate about players wearing visors seems to me to be one of the more absurd arguments in all sports. The issue is whether players should be forced to wear visors, protective shields that have time and again proven to save players from massive eye injuries. What makes this situation absurd is that the usual roles have been completely reversed. The NHLPA aka the union have insisted that it is the players right to decide whether or not a player wears a visor. As some of you know I have some experience with unions and the I will credit them for never taking employee safety for granted, especially when it means having meetings and making CPC pay for expensive safety equipment. If I as a supervisor see an employee not wearing steel toe boots in a steel toe area I can discipline him on the spot without fear of a union grievance. In fact if a shop steward (a union representative for those of you unaccustomed to the parlance of worker brotherhood) sees someone not wearing protective foot gear he will grieve me for not taking action. ( Bill C-45 further complicates the matter but I digress...) The players association is disregarding the players best interest by not joining with the League in making the wearing of visors mandatory.
The League obviously has a financial interest in the safety of it's players, especially it's star players. If I were Gary Bettman I would have added this clause to the last CBA; If a player declines to use a piece of equipment that would increase the level of safety, then that player will not be paid if he is injured in a manner that could have been reasonably seen to have been prevented by using said piece of equipment. (wow I'm getting good at the legalese) So to put it in laymen's terms if Jarome Iginla (I know you were expecting a wikipedia link there, but I have to mix it up) gets hit in the eye with a puck and he has chosen to not wear a visor, he sits out without pay. The owners have put up huge dollars for these players and the star players are a crucial element of a teams success, the stubbornness that leads players to abandon eye protection should not be rewarded by paying players who are recouping from preventable injuries. This would also save the teams hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums that they pay in order to protect themselves from having to pay a player who is injured during the first game and sits out the entire year. The most common reason that players give for not wearing visors is that they restrict vision and can cause bluriness. As B.Sherm is fond of saying "I call BullShit". This is the old excuse that Craig Mactavish and other old farts used to use and it holds no merit anymore. Anyone who is playing in the NHL today grew up playing with visors or cages on their helmuts, they managed in junior and they can manage now when a team is putting millions of dollars on the line.