Bryan Berard seemed to have the world on a string a year ago. He was young and had a gift for playing defence on hockey rinks — a mainstay on the Toronto Maple Leaf blue line.

Berard's future imploded when he was struck in the eye by a stick in a game against Ottawa.

Several operations — and a year later — Berard has regained a fraction of the vision in the injured eye. But he's no closer to returning to the National Hockey League.

Berard's injury brought the issue of face protection to the forefront of the hockey world yet again. The league won't change its rules to force players to wear visors. Only a few do.

In minor hockey, much more has been done to protect our children.

Great strides have been taken to ensure that kids playing hockey are as safe as they can be. There are non-contact rules for young players, serious penalties for hitting from behind, and better and safer equipment.

But some parents believe we can do better still.

There are no national statistics on facial injuries to young players and some hockey experts insist they are rare.

The Canadian Hockey Association requires all players to wear a full-face protector while they are on the ice, until they are 17 years old. The CHA, the organization that runs minor hockey in Canada, says the rule is enough to prevent serious injuries.

John Muise is a dedicated hockey dad. His son, Steven, wears number 16 for the Ajax Knights, a major Pee Wee A team. The 13-year-old player keeps his skills sharp in the off-season by playing roller hockey.

Last summer, Steven was hurt when a stick went through his mask and cut him near his eye.

When John Muise heard about his son's injury, he said it wasn't possible.

"At first I said it can't, the mask is made so the stick won't penetrate it," Muise remembers. "You shouldn't have gotten cut. I don't know how it happened."

Later, Muise tried to poke an un-taped stick through his son's mask. He was stunned when it went right through the mask.

Marketplace went with Muise to a sports store to test other masks. We found that the un-taped end of a stick passed through all of the grid style masks commonly available.

• Marketplace test results

The Canadian Hockey Association, which writes the rules governing safety protection for young players, requires the end of the stick to be covered "to prevent injury." Most hockey sticks either have a custom-made knob of tape on the end, or a mass-produced rubber tip.

We tried our test once again with a stick that had its end taped, so CHA specifications. It also penetrated many of the masks.

The third stage of our test involved using a stick that had the mass produced rubber stopper at the end of the stick. It was a little larger than the taped stick, but still went through two of eight masks we tested.

Todd Jackson oversees safety rules for the Canadian Hockey Association. He concedes that there will be cases where a taped stick will go through a mask. He agrees that that could be a problem. He notes, though, that the standard for hockey masks has been drafted by the CSA. He says as long as a mask meets the CSA standard, it is legal equipment for players covered by the Canadian Hockey Association.

Hockey facemasks have been around for more than a quarter of a century. Dr. Tom Pashby is credited as being the person who persuaded minor hockey officials to make facemasks mandatory for young players.

Pashby is an ophthalmologist, and he led the CSA committee that drafted the current standard for hockey facemasks. The first facemask standard was written in the mid 1970s, and it worked.

"Last year for instance I only had eleven reports of eye injuries and one blind eye," Pashby told Marketplace. "In the 1974-75 season, I had forty-three blind eyes. So there's no doubt about it. These have saved a lot of eyes."

CSA sets guidelines

To be certified, a hockey facemask must pass a battery of tests set out in Pashby's CSA standard. Polycarbonate masks and wire cages both must meet certain visibility requirements. They must withstand the force of a puck fired at 112 km/h. The cage-type mask must also resist penetration by a hockey stick. The rules state that the mask must stop the blade end of the stick, not necessarily the butt end.

Pashby says he and his colleagues believed that there was no need to worry about the butt end of the stick. It was believed that because the butt end is always taped, it would not penetrate a mask.

But to his surprise, Pashby discovered that he was wrong.

Concerned and curious, Pashby wondered how many legally taped sticks will pass through the grid of a CSA certified mask. He tried our experiment with his own team of eight year olds, and with two teams of 12-year-old Pee Wees.

With the help of the younger boys, he tested 13 sticks. Five passed through a certified mask.

The older players provided 29 legally taped sticks. Twenty-one of them went through the CSA certified mask.

Pashby suggests the problem could be addressed by requiring players to put more tape on the ends of their sticks.

The CHA's Tod Jackson says the rules don't specify the amount of tape a player must use on the butt end of a stick, because sticks penetrating face masks have not been a problem.

Jackson adds that those who are concerned about the risk of a stick getting through a facemask can buy a polycarbonate mask (clear shield) instead of a cage. One disadvantage to the polycarbonate mask is that it can fog up in the heat of the game.

Hockey dad John Muise has another suggestion — the ringed mask.

The ringette model

Ringette is game akin to hockey. Ringette players used to wear a standard hockey mask, until a player suffered a serious eye injury. That provoked Ringette Canada to push for its own CSA standard for facemasks. Now a ringette cage must have a tighter triangular grid that a stick can't go through.

Some hockey people claim the ringette mask is harder to see through. Pashby disagrees. He notes that the ringette mask meets the same visibility criteria hockey masks do.

Muise says the hockey standard should be just as tough as the ringette standard.

"It's not rocket science," Muise says. "They should be able to make a mask to stop the end of a stick from going through."

What you can do