What Bobby Orr is saying about headshots

I guess this is the conversation of the week...headshots, concussions. Well now Bobby Orr has spoken on the matter with TSN.

"I don't want to see hitting taken out of the game, I love hitting in hockey," Orr told TSN, "but if someone puts his shoulder into a player's face, if he puts anything -- an arm, an elbow, a glove -- I think that player should get a penalty. Definitely, it should be a penalty. We are having players getting knocked unconscious before they even hit the ice and carried off on stretchers. How can that be legal? When did hitting someone in the head with your shoulder or any part of your body become part of the rules? Anything above the neck, it's wrong.

"Hey, I got hit a lot when I played and I didn't get hit in the head with checks," said Orr, the legendary defenceman who is now the head of his own player representation firm. "Players didn't always hit like that. To me, that's not part of bodychecking. I mean, don't you have to be responsible for your actions? If you hit a guy in the face with your stick by accident, you're going to get a penalty. Two minutes, four minutes, five minutes, something. If you go to bodycheck a guy and you hit him in the face or head, and injure him, that's legal? That's fair? That's not a penalty? I'm sorry, I don't think that is right. It should be a penalty."

Alright alright. So maybe there is a way to avoid headshots. If it is going to be considered by the NHL, it has to be done right. TSN also mentioned how the Ontario Hockey League has legislated that any hit to the head, intentional or not, is a penalty. OHL commissioner David Branch has stated that the concept has been widely accepted, and that hitting still exists in the OHL. Maybe they are on to something...maybe.
But then, like Branch also mentions, what happens when a tall guy hits a shorter guy? It usually results in some form of hit to the cabbage.
I still stand by Don Cherry's idea to eliminate the hard plastic shoulder padding. I really don't want another form of penalty added in the NHL. There already are too many. This isn't fucking soccer. This is an actual tough sport called hockey. I don't care what Bobby Orr says.
Keep your head up!