Doug Ford weighs in as OHL body checking debate continues

The debate of body checking in the Ontario Hockey League has continued in recent days.

Ontario Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries Lisa MacLeod said in early-October that in order for the Ontario Hockey League to return to play, it would be without body checking.

While speaking to reporters on Oct. 7, MacLeod said “it would be safe to say that body contact, unless it’s incremental, will not be permitted as a result of COVID-19.”

On Friday, she stood by that comment and said that recent COVID outbreaks in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League played a role in her standing by that opinion.

The QMJHL regular season began on Oct. 2 with teams playing only opponents within their six-team division.

Teams in the two Quebec-based divisions had their games postponed for two weeks as a number of teams were in provincial red zones while three teams have had COVID-19 cases since the open of regular-season action.

The league officially opened training camps at the beginning of September while teams also played exhibition games within their division throughout the month and had very few issues.

MacLeod reiterated the point via social media, saying that body checking was something that wasn’t up for debate with the league in regards to its planned return, which sees training camps open in late January and regular-season action beginning in early-February.

Over the weekend, Ontario Premier Doug Ford tweeted about the issue of no hitting in OHL games upon return.

In a tweet, Ford said that no official decision had been made with regard to the removal of body checking in OHL games, which was a very different view from the one presented on Friday by MacLeod.

Former Soo Greyhounds general manager Kyle Dubas said in a recent interview that he hoped the league would return to action the way fans are used to seeing it.

“I’m also hopeful that it will be back in hockey in its usual form,” Dubas said. “I understand what might be the reasoning behind the no-contact rule and everything to that nature, I sure hope that just the science of the spread of the virus and the fact that these guys are going to be in close quarters with each other anyway that the teams can do a good job of monitoring it and preventing any illness from getting inside the clubs and that they can allow the groups to get back to playing as normal.”

In an October meeting with reporters via Zoom, Western Hockey League commissioner Ron Robison was asked about MacLeod’s comments and said similar discussions aren’t expected for its return to play, which is set for early-January.

“We haven’t had any comments of that nature come our way,” Robison said. “We don’t envision those types of conversations taking place out west.”