House-league hitting will be a thing of the past next season for young Chilliwack hockey players.

Citing studies that show triple the injuries in leagues where there is body-checking, three-quarters of Pacific Coast Amateur Hockey Association (PCAHA) members voted to eliminate hitting in the "fun" levels of hockey. Bodychecking will still be allowed at the "rep" level played by the most advanced young players. The PCAHA is the governing body for the Chilliwack Minor Hockey Association.

While the face of professional hockey, Sidney Crosby, languishes for months on the sidelines with a concussion, PCAHA's Fraser Valley East managing director Alison Niezen said the vote's results probably reflected concerns about the dangers of bodychecking.

"The majority of recreation or 'house' hockey players are not going to play junior or professional hockey when they move on from minor hockey-they will play on a body-contact college team or men's recreational team," Niezen told the Times, via email. "When you take that into consideration it seems unwise to subject them to that risk in their prime developmental years."

Hockey parent Bill Veenstra said ultimately the mounting medical evidence is what ruled the day.

"The medical journals have shown that adding backchecking triples the risk of injury," said Veenstra, president of the Vancouver Thunderbird Minor Hockey Association.

"That's hard to ignore." Cory Silbernagel, who coaches a peewee hockey team in Chilliwack, agreed and heartily approved of the decision.

"In my opinion, it's a great thing," he said.

Silbernagel is in his fourth year of coaching hockey, but this is his first coaching at the peewee level, the age at which bodychecking has been introduced. He told the Times that body-checking creates fear in a game that most house-level players play for fun.

"Kids are scared to go into the corner and hit and get hit," he said.

Peewee house hockey boasts a range of players-from those who might be able to make a rep team, to those who can barely skate. Silbernagel said removing bodychecking should reduce the number of players scared away from the game by violent collisions.

Body contact will still be allowed- "You can still stand that guy up," notes Silbernagel-but actively hitting another player will now be a punishable offence.

"I think it makes it a lot more fun," said Silbernagel.

The PCAHA handed out background materials to prepare its members for the vote. Among the most telling was a comparative study of peewee hockey in Alberta, where there is bodychecking, and in Quebec, where bodychecking is banned.

"The study concluded that, among 11-to-12-year-old ice hockey players . . . a three-fold increased risk of all game related injuries and the categories of concussions, severe injury and severe concussion."