Full Face Shields

According to this story 112 junior teams in Ontario will be wearing full cages this year.

The subject was been brought up here in the KIJHL before but the teams were not interested in going full face protection. Most of the hockey guys I know agree that with full cages the elbows, sticks, and hands go up and maybe player respect takes a hit as well.

There is evidence out there showing that  face injuries and dental claims go way down with full face masks. Also,  player insurance costs also go down as well, and as one coach told me, way down.

So far the junior leagues out west have not had to wear full cages, and if you polled the different league's governors and coaches they would vote no by a large margin ... but I'm betting that in the next couple of years there will be no voting, it will be mandated by either BC Hockey or Hockey Canada who, if you didn't know, provide the insurance for all carded players . So bank on it, cause for insurance reasons HC & BCAHA's gonna be banking on it as well and like it or not, no fighting and full cages is the way it's headed .

And finally, if a team wanted to they could tell their players, if you want to play here, you have to wear a full face shield.  And that would be interesting, like a science experiment. 

Some coaches think they would have a  hard time getting players, and that's likely... but maybe not, the team may actually get a recruiting advantage. Some (lots of ?) parents might want to send little Johnny to cageville, after all, average Johnny ain't goin to the NHL anyway, so why get hurt. And some players may actually want to keep the cage on.