A bill inspired by the death of a New Canaan youth hockey player passed the Connecticut House of Representatives Tuesday, but it doesn't go as far as some had hoped.

St. Luke's School tenth-grader Teddy Balkind was killed on Jan. 6 when another player's skate accidentally cut his neck. The case led to a national debate over whether youth hockey players should be required to wear neck guards.

One of Balkind's friends launched an online petition to make the change.

"I just don't want anyone to go through what me and my community has gone through," said fellow hockey player Samuel Brande.

Instead, the Connecticut House approved a bill to study the issue. A nine-member task force will make recommendations by the end of this year, with wider youth sports recommendations coming by the end of 2023.

State Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria (R-Seymour) said the bill was an important compromise.

"I immediately put on my athletic training hat and said, 'We need to do something. We need to do some more research,'" she said.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference already requires neck guards for public schools, but CIAC doesn't have jurisdiction over private institutions like St. Luke's or community youth hockey leagues. An earlier bill would have expanded the mandate to all hockey teams, but the Connecticut State Medical Society opposed the bill, saying there isn't "sufficient medical evidence" that neck guards prevent neck lacerations.

"It's one of those things that I think everybody thought, 'Everyone should just wear neck guards,'" said the House Majority Leader Jason Rojas (D-Hartford). "And then, when you get into this process, and you really dig into how this policy would work, there was a decision to move back to a task force."

The state Senate expects to approve the youth hockey task force in the next two weeks. Then Gov. Ned Lamont would have to sign the bill.

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