Teri Weiss, a Wisconsin hockey mom and founder of Skate Armor, finally feels at peace following new USA Hockey safety rules, effective August 1st. These new rules require neck guards for all youth players, allowing them to be better protected.

Weiss founded Skate Armor — a company that designs and manufactures neck guards — for her son, Boston Bruins defenseman Mason Lohrei. Her goal was to keep Lohrei safe on the ice. Nevertheless, he has voiced his dislike for the device.

“I just hate wearing a neck guard in general,” said Lohrei. “Wasn’t a fan of it.”

Lohrei’s stance on neck guards has not changed since he was young. Weiss’s meaningful journey to ensure players’ safety on the rink began when Lohrei was 9, after he returned from practice with a bruise on his neck. The brace Weiss bought for him was in his bag, untouched. Lohrei didn’t like wearing them because, he said, the seams irritated his skin and the fabric allowed his sweat to make the brace heavier. Weiss cut the neck guard open with a knife and went to the family room to show her son, who was watching TV.

“Mom,” Lohrei said. “If you make me something, I’ll wear it.”

So, she set out to make a design, fueled by the belief that “no ice-skating athlete should die on the ice from a preventable injury”. For materials, she used SpectraGuard, a fiber she decided on “after extensive research,” used in cut-resistant gloves, apparel, helmets, and armored vehicles. Then, she added two tabs beneath the ears, extending coverage to protect vital blood vessels.

These Skate Armor neck guards proved to be very effective, being one of only two models out of a total of 14 that did not fail under a compression of 600 Newtons.

Despite these results, Weiss’s worries were not ceded, because what use was a neck guard if nobody wore them?

“You want to make this choice,” Weiss said, following her son’s injury in February of 2024. “But if you care about the people that love you, that have gotten you to this game, that have spent time and effort and money, then you’re going to go out and skate without a neck guard on? Something that, yes, is rare. But if it does happen, it can kill you. So why? If you have a mom, a dad, a brother, a sister, a wife, children, why aren’t you wearing a neck guard?”