The team I coach is very big for our age.  In the beginning of the season we were getting way too many penalties for roughing.  Several times the ref would came over to the bench and tell us he could have called a hit to the head that would have resulted in more penalty time.  Here is the point.  There really was no penalty.  In most cases the other players head came up to the level of our big players forearm or hands.  The problem is so bad that we have decided to tell our big players not to play the body at all when we play smaller teams, and that is almost every game.  Our penalty minutes are way down, but our big players are being cheated of learning to use a very important asset, their size.  
 
When little players are confronted with a bigger player along the boards, they instinctlvely turn away resulting in a check from behind penalty, so we are left with poking at the puck and the possibility of a tripping penalty.
 
As a coach there are no real options.  From a rules and refing perspective, the rules and refing are killing the development of the big guy.  Basketball is more physical than Hockey in todays PC namby pamby world.  But the kids who play basketball are tougher than hockey players to begin with, and that is a sad but true reality.