USA Hockey (the governing body for hockey in the United States) has released a statement about neck guards. This comes after the tragic on ice passing of Adam Johnson. In response to the events surrounding the passing of Adam Johnson, several leagues have now made neck guards mandatory. Several leagues (mainly youth) already had neck guard policies in place that required players to wear them. Some teams have gone as far to make their players wear neck guards despite their leagues not making neck guards mandatory.
Up until the 2023/24 season most adult leagues including professional have not required neck guards. Neck Guards are pretty much mandatory at all levels now except professional in Canada. I don’t think that hockey Canada requires neck guards at the adult level. I do not know the specifics of the neck guard rule in Canada outside of professional leagues prior to this season. What I do know is happening in Canada is pretty much every league that I have seen is now requiring them. From what I understand it is a similar situation in Europe. While most leagues and national governing bodies are not requiring neck guards for adult or professional players, teams and leagues are still making them mandatory. Likewise the International Ice Hockey Federation, has not changed their rules on neck guards yet but it could be coming soon. In the IIHF all under 20 players are required to wear neck guards and in some cases like hockey Canada they make all of their players except their mens national ice hockey team wear neck guards.
The rule changes throughout the hockey world and players now just wanting to wear neck guards has caused a shortage of neck guards. It went from almost no players wearing or wanting neck guards to majority of players wanting and wearing neck guards over night.
USA Hockey in their email that was sent out on Saturday, November 4th, 2023, stated that while player safety is still their top priority, the decision to make neck guards mandatory will remain up to individual leagues. What this means is that each league, rink or even state could have different neck guard polices. Most youth leagues already required neck guards. Youth leagues will probably no longer have an age at which neck guards will be optional. I have not heard anything from Reno Ice or the Reno Ice Adult League regarding a neck guard policy. I imagine if they change their policy to requiring neck guards for all players an email will probably be sent out to all Reno Ice players, parents, and customers. The full statement from USA Hockey can be seen here.
“Any association, league, team, affiliate, or district may choose to require a neck laceration protector and a parent/guardian may choose to require their child to wear a neck laceration protector.“
-USA Hockey (Nov. 4, 2023)
As far as the National Hockey League goes, I do not think neck guards will be made mandatory any time soon outside of individual teams asking players to wear them. The National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association will probably not make any statements for the requiring of neck guards until after the 2023/24 season. There has been discussion about grandfathering neck guards into the NHL. If they grandfathered neck guards in that would mean that neck guards would remain optional for current players but mandatory for new players. They grandfathered helmets into the league and more recently visors. Since the 1990s the NHL has basically required goalies to wear neck guards or better helmets to prevent goaltenders from neck injuries.
Zac Electrifly 
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