5 Hockey Buzzwords That Should Never Be Used Again | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

This term might have better connotations if people did not constantly use it as a desperate way of defending egregiously injurious hits.

Twice in the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs alone, people called a dangerous hit a “hockey play” once the perpetrator received his suspension for it.

Ottawa Senators coach Paul MacLean evoked the term when Sens defenseman Eric Gryba leveled Montreal’s Lars Eller. One round later, L.A.’s Jarret Stoll took his hockey humility too far when he used the same two words to describe the hit he endured by San Jose’s Raffi Torres.

Yes, hitting is an integral part of the game, but the rationale is prying an opponent away from the puck and, over time, wearing the opponent down through repeated contact. High hits have never fallen within ethical boundaries and, thankfully, do not fall within legal boundaries these days, either.

Sometimes, hits will do more than what the checker genuinely intends, but simply saying “it’s just a hockey play” undermines the effort to curtail injuries.