Ice hockey’s top players stick their necks out to resist safety rule at the Winter Olympics

It was, as far as Luc Tardif could tell, a “tremendous day” for international ice hockey. At a summit in Zurich last July, the president of the sport’s international governing body, the IIHF, reached an agreement with the world’s richest and most popular league, the NHL, which ensured that the game’s biggest stars would be present at the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.

Both previous editions of the Games had gone ahead without the planet’s best players. The league had not been able to reach an agreement with the IIHF to release its skaters for Pyeongchang in 2018; the logistical problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic convinced the NHL that taking part at Beijing 2022 was “no longer feasible”. Finally, though, they were back, and Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, was “thrilled”.

Since then, though, actually delivering an ice hockey competition over the next three weeks has been plagued by setbacks, complications and complaints.

The Santagiulia Arena, where many of the games will be held, will only just be finished in time for the competition. Despite assurances to the contrary, the rink itself falls short of the minimum length required by the NHL; there have been concerns over the quality of the ice, too. As late as December, Daly made it clear that if the players felt that the “ice was unsafe, we’re not going to play”.

Even if all of those problems can be resolved, one sensitive issue remains: the fact that everyone will be forced to play in neck guards, a piece of equipment – made of cut-resistant foam or Kevlar and designed to protect players from serious injury from rapier-sharp skates – that many of the world’s best have not worn since childhood.

The rule was introduced by the IIHF a matter of weeks after the death of Adam Johnson, a former NHL player who suffered a fatal cut to his neck while playing for the Nottingham Panthers in October 2023. Johnson’s throat was cut during an accidental on-ice collision with a Sheffield Steelers player; he collapsed on the ice and doctors were unable to save him.

Within a week of his death, neck guards had been made compulsory for all players competing in the various divisions of the Canadian Hockey League; they had already been mandatory in both junior and women’s hockey. A number of development leagues and national federations, including USA Hockey, quickly followed suit. They were made obligatory by the English Ice Hockey Association in 2024.

The IIHF extended a rule mandating neck guards in all of its junior events to senior competitions a little earlier, in December 2023, although the introduction of the rule was delayed to allow for supply-chain issues. It was in place for last year’s World Championships and the IIHF confirmed that they would be compulsory at the Olympics.

Those measures do not extend, though, to the NHL, which does not fall under the auspices of the IIHF. The league itself has long recommended its players wear cut-resistant materials on their necks, wrists and lower legs, the three areas deemed most at risk of a stray blade. According to the Daily Faceoff, information on the importance of protection is posted in team locker rooms, as well as data on each piece of equipment’s performance.

The league’s players’ union long resisted any move to turn that advice into a formal policy. The vast majority of the NHL’s stars, even after Johnson’s death, chose not to wear neck protection.

Colin Campbell, the NHL’s director of hockey operations, revealed in 2024 that only 55 of the 708 players in the competition habitually played with their necks covered. (He did note that more were using protective wristbands and protective socks.) A poll conducted by The Athletic the same year found that 78% of players disagreed with the idea of making neck guards mandatory.

Their objections fell, largely, into two categories: comfort and choice. Some players – particularly those who had worn them in children’s hockey – remembered neck guards as hot, restrictive and uncomfortable, a burden that impacted their performance. Mason Lohrei, a Boston Bruins defenseman, resisted wearing one despite the fact that his mother runs Skate Armor, a company that produces lightweight neck protection, partly because he found them so irritating as a child.

Most, though, essentially felt that experienced professionals should not be told what to do.

Players “don’t want to be told necessarily what to do and what not to do, partly when it could affect performance on some basis,” Daly said in 2024. “They’re not going to jump into allowing us to make it mandatory.”

Nick Suzuki, captain of the Montreal Canadiens and a member of Canada’s squad in Milan, said that he likes “to have the freedom of what I’m wearing. We’re all professionals, and old enough to make our own decisions.”

Jack Eichel, a centre for the Vegas Golden Knights and the US team, said that most players were “pretty set in their ways”.

Eventually, the NHL found a compromise: as part of a new collective bargaining agreement, players who are new to the league will be compelled to wear neck protection from the start of the forthcoming season, but anyone who has already made at least one appearance in the competition will have the right to choose.

The same ruling – known for reasons that are not entirely clear as “grandfathering” – was used when visors were made mandatory in 2013; there are still four players in the NHL who choose not to wear them.

The IIHF has not offered nearly as much room for manoeuvre: everyone has to wear one. The majority of teams involved say that they will find it little more than a minor inconvenience. Most European players, for example, grew up wearing neck guards and those still playing their hockey on this side of the Atlantic largely have to wear them in competition.

The Canadians, too, have long recommended all of their players wear them at all times, although they are only compulsory in the country’s minor leagues and girls’ hockey. Their senior players wore them while competing at last year’s world championships; Team Canada are confident they will be “nothing new” for their athletes.

Although there have been suggestions that a number of US players are less enthused by the rule – despite considerable advances in technology to make the guards as comfortable as possible – they do at least have a little prior experience, too.

Their men’s team competed in the world championships last year, wearing neck guards, whether they liked it or not. They duly won it for the first time since 1960.

Photograph by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images