CFL ban on full-contact practices leaves questions for high school, university teams

The Canadian Football League announced on Wednesday it is banning full-contact practices during the regular season — and many people have been left wondering what that will mean for high school and university teams.

Until this week, CFL teams could hold a total of 17 padded practices after training camp.

The move to ban full-contact practices was done to prevent unnecessary concussions, and didn't come as much of a surprise to the head coach of the Saint Mary's University Huskies in Halifax.

"You don't want your best players to get hurt in practice. You don't want anybody really getting hurt," James Colzie III said at a Huskies practice on Thursday.

Colzie said he wouldn't be surprised to see the ban start to trickle down from the CFL.

"High schools and universities, they always try to build things up based on what they see in professional football," he said.

"One of the first things we do in practice is teach people how to tackle with helmets and pads on. There's ways to do it. It doesn't necessarily have to be full-contact days, which I think they're trying to prevent."

Focus on player safety

For years, the CFL has been criticized for not taking concussions seriously enough.

But newly appointed commissioner Randy Ambrosie, a former player himself, said it's time to focus on player safety.

"There is always going to be something we didn't know before, that we know now," Ambrosie said. "There always should be an emphasis on making improvements where we can."

The commissioner of the Winnipeg High School Football League said it's a great decision — for the CFL.

"They're at a level where the teaching aspect of the game isn't the same as our teaching aspect," Rick Henkewich said, adding that players at his level need to practise full-contact drills for their own safety.

"What's the lesser of two evils: sending someone out who doesn't know how to hit or take a hit and letting them loose on the field with all that equipment and technology, or teaching them how to hit in practice and the full contact in practice?"

Sports teams need 'proper concussion protocol'

Steve Podborski, who may be best known as part of the Crazy Canuck downhill Olympic ski team in the 1970s, now heads an advocacy group called Parachute. Its mission is to prevent injuries and save lives.

"I think it's a progressive decision. It's one that tries to address an issue that is becoming more and more apparent and that is of concussion and injury," Podborski said.

But he said the other issue is to make sure people know what to do when concussions happen — and that goes for all sports and all ages.

"I think it's important to understand that your sport has the proper concussion protocol. That everybody in the group — the coaches, the leadership and the other parents and even the kids — all agree that if somebody gets a concussion or a broken arm that they're both treated with equal care and attention."

The CFL's new no-hitting practice rule comes into effect immediately.