Carbo Talks About Visors

Dallas Morning News, 3/26/00

Q: Should the NHL institute a mandatory visor rule and would force all incoming players to wear some form of eye protection but would allow players already in the league to continue choosing to not wear a visor?

Guy: NO. This might sound harsh, but if they would have passed this rule when I was a rookie, I would have taken them to court.

I have worn a shield for 10 years of my career, and I decided that wasn't what was best for me. And that's a decision that I need to make. The shields are available, and I think that's great. I think they should continue to make shields and helmets better, and then I think a player should get the choice of what he feels is comfortable.

When they made helmets mandatory, that was fine. Helmets don't affect how you see the puck and how you see the ice.

I think the real problem is players aren't trained to keep their sticks down the way we were. Players play in juniors with shields and they don't learn how to control their sticks. If you overreact to one problem like the Berard incident, you have to be careful or you'll start a whole new set of problems.

An Interesting Side Note on the Subject:

Recently, ESPN commentary and former L.A. Kings Coach Barry Melrose was featured in an online chat on espn.com during the broadcast of one of the sports network's "NHL Rules" games. Barry fielded a question about visors, and after voicing his support of leaving the matter up to the players, said that no team has ever won the Stanley Cup with a captain who wore a visor.

For some reason Barry forgot the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals, when Montreal beat Los Angeles. In 1993 Barry was the coach of the Kings, and the Canadiens were captained by Guy Carbonneau, who at the time wore a visor.