14 Comments

Two words...

Ryan Reaves.

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Excellent column. It’s good that the concussion issues are taken seriously at the top levels of the sport. More importantly are they important at the lower levels?

In 1972, on my high school baseball team one Saturday morning practice, I was dumb enough to be standing behind the bull pen, behind the catcher, talking to a buddy of mine who was sitting on the hood of his car, when I got struck in the side of the head by a wild pitch, all I remember is my coach screaming “ Oh my god”!!!! I was out for the whole day. No big deal. My senior year on the football team, my job was to bust up the wedge on the kick off team. I did so with great relish and abandoned, I hit a guy on homecoming in the mud head on, his name was Rick Hurley. Everyone thought it was funny. I was picked up face down in the mud and taken to the training room where.... I don’t know what happened

We used the same helmets as the University of Alabama. My helmet split from the top screw securing the face mask all the way around. I later took that helmet and sat it on the 50 yard line and took a picture of it then put the picture in a frame.

And over the course of 45 years training like a freaking animal as a runner, I’ve wondered about extreme endorphin highs after brutal workouts, the addiction to them and the concussive effects.

Good that they are taking this seriously at the highest levels but I wonder at the Little League levels.

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Further to all of the above, hockey players in general when given a chance are casual about headgear selection and the wearing of same.

Just look at the looseness of chin straps and the use of mouthguards.

Plus, of course, head shots are very loosely dealt with.

The laws of physics don't change, and the deceleration (or acceleration) of anyone's melon past the limits of the ability of said melon to keep the brain uninjured is a lot less than the potential forces of NHL caliber skaters hitting anything that doesn't move. Getting your bell run and not missing a shift might make you popular in the room, but it all adds up and there's only so much in the bank.

The NHLPA should be all over this and I assume is not because the culture is too strong to gain support from the players.

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Important conversation to have. I think as time moves forward and the sport and its fans move with it, we'll see a more proactive attitude toward the subject instead of blanket statements and hand-waves like, "that's hockey" and "keep your head up".

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Great article. I have dealt with the effects of multiple concussions from sports. It’s noticeable still to me and it’s been over a decade since my last concussion. For athletes to be practicing full speed a week later and playing in games shortly after that is laughable. The brain takes much longer than a week or two to heal, even after the last symptom.

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I'm curious if the NHLPA would be open to having players run through a pre-concussion battery of cognitive tests to establish a baseline for comparison when diagnosing a concussion after serious head contact. I'm not so confident that examination players undergo after a big hit is really all that effective. If anything, establishing a timeline could be beneficial for determining vital windows for when treatments need to be applied to be most effective. Maybe some sort of drug needs to be administered ahead of the ionic cascade.

Thanks for the guest column. Keep them coming Craig.

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This was awesome, thank you for writing and sharing.

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One more story ( I’m sorry) My freshman year, my fishing buddy, a real tough kid and I played an entire half of our freshman season when we were taking a knee one practice, I looked over and his helmet was between us... It had no webbing. Nothing. For a half a season as a nose tackle he wore just a shell.

We called him “ Rock Head” after that but not to his face.

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Good article. Thanks for writing it!

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Interesting article. Some legit credentials from Ms. Nicola.

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