September 18, 2011
Special Report: Concussions
How concussions are impacting the players — and the sport itself
by Brion O'Connor/Correspondent
Former Ranger Marc Savard has suffered post-concussion symptoms since being blindsided by Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke in the spring of 2010. (photo: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
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In hindsight, I could have — should have — seen the hit coming. My daughter’s co-ed Pee Wee squad, featuring a number of first-year Pee Wee players unaccustomed to the fine art of body checking, was matched up against a rough and tumble team from a few towns away. No, that’s being too kind. This team was dirty.
Eight minutes into the game, things were getting out of hand. From my vantage point in the stands, it seemed the two teenage referees were more interested in getting the game over than calling it tight. Garden-variety hits to the head and hits from behind went uncalled, apparently because they weren’t deemed serious enough or there was no injury. Then, with a minute to go in the opening period, it got downright ugly. And scary.
One of our defensemen, “Jimmy,” took a pass at the right point, but the puck skittered off his stick blade. As he looked for the puck at his feet, 12-year-old Jimmy got drilled. A big kid from the other team, who already had spent time in the penalty box, waded in, his gloves driving into Jimmy’s chin like a knockout punch. Jimmy’s head snapped back, and he was immediately airborne, falling backwards. His derriere hit the ice first, followed by his head, which bounced off the rock-hard surface like a baseball off a bat. For a terrifying moment, Jimmy laid motionless, his arms and legs spread like a snow angel.
Slowly, Jimmy rolled over, much to the relief of every parent in the bleachers. But it was clear that he wasn’t right as he struggled to all fours. Years ago, we might have said Jimmy got his “bell rung,” or was “seeing stars.” Today, though, we know better. I’m no doctor, but my first suspicion proved to be accurate: Jimmy suffered a concussion.
Our team’s coach came sliding across the ice, and one of the young refs pointed to the offender and directed him to the penalty box. It was a blatant hit to the head, yet the kid started yapping to the ref, his arms extended in the classic “what did I do?” posture. To make things worse, his coach got in on the act, berating the young ref, who understandably looked back in disbelief.
And I began questioning what was happening to the sport I love, the sport I still play, the sport I want my daughter to enjoy for a lifetime.
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Concussions are becoming the bane of hockey.
Most notably, Derek Boogaard of the New York Rangers suffered a season-ending concussion in a Dec. 9 fight with Matt Carkner, which some have speculated may have helped lead to his death five months later. Boogaard, who was 28, was found dead in his apartment in May, and his family has donated his brain to concussion research.
On a much lesser note, the Rangers’ Marian Gaborik missed six games last season after suffering a concussion in February.
Boston Bruins fans, meanwhile, have seen their fair share over the past few years, with stars such as Patrice Bergeron, Marc Savard and Nathan Horton all sent to Queer Street thanks to questionable hits. Philadelphia Flyer Randy Jones was suspended for two games for the hit from behind that ended Bergeron’s 2007 season in October (or 72 games, plus the playoffs).
In the spring of 2010, Savard was knocked out by a blindside hit from notorious bad boy Matt Cooke, who wasn’t even penalized. However, the NHL governors moved quickly to close the loophole that allowed Cooke to skate away scot free, outlawing hits that specifically target the head.
Savard, sadly, has yet to play after a second concussion, suffered against the Colorado Avalanche last season. Cooke, however, is returning to the ice, after serving a season-ending suspension for a cheap-shot elbow to the head of New York Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh. Any true hockey fan hopes the same can be said for one of Cooke’s teammates, superstar Sidney Crosby, who had his own 2010-11 season ended by post-concussion symptoms.
In many ways, concussions are a warning sign of a larger disease, one that Cooke personifies. Ask older players, from former pros to current beer-leaguers, and they’ll tell you that players today, at almost every level, don’t have the same respect for each other across the board. The idea of body contact is no longer just to separate the player from the puck, but to separate the player from his senses. And it’s not just hockey, which indicates there’s a cultural shift that we need to be concerned about.
In football, players hit with abandon, and celebrate shots that leave opponents writhing on the field. Steven Stenerson, the president and CEO of U.S. Lacrosse, penned an editorial last May in Lacrosse Magazine entitled “Contact, Not Collision.”
“Take-out checks do nothing to expedite a child’s development as a player,” Stenerson wrote.
Sound familiar?
Following his illegal hit on McDonagh, Cooke was labeled a “serial headhunter” by ESPN’s Scott Burnside. If there was ever a nickname that fit the perpetrator, that was it. But youth hockey officials and parents constantly struggle with the fact that kids emulate the NHL game.
John Gardner, president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League, told Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper: “Kids are copying what they see in the NHL. I don’t care what anybody says, that’s a fact. And when the kids see it, they don’t understand why they can’t do it.”
Likewise, John Gallagher, the former head of officiating for Women’s Hockey East and an avid youth hockey supporter, calls it the “hurt versus hit” mentality.
“Some might disagree, but I am used to seeing the more skilled players at this level usually be on the smaller end of the size chart,” Gallagher said. “That skilled kid becomes a target in no time, and there is no question what tactics are used to target the kid.”
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However, hockey is still a contact sport, and legions of fans don’t want to see the hitting taken out of the game. After Horton’s concussion in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and Aaron Rome’s subsequent suspension, former Bruin Derek Sanderson even questioned if the hit was illegal. Many of the minor professional players I work with in the summer said the same thing, agreeing that Horton should have had his head up, instead of admiring his pass.
Sanderson, speaking on sports-talk radio during the playoffs, said the league, in suspending Rome, was reacting to earlier infractions that weren’t punished (specifically Alex Burrows biting Bergeron during a scrum). Moreover, Sanderson said in his day — the 1970s — the hit on Horton would have been dealt with immediately and severely, on the ice, probably in the form of a bench-clearing brawl.
Sanderson’s comments reflect a public quandary that hockey faces. Even as the NHL and other professional and amateur leagues (including college and high school) try to legislate fighting into a more restrictive corner, the loss of that frontier justice gives rise to more players taking liberties without fear of immediate retribution.
A perfect example of this predicament is commentator Mike Milbury, an NHL veteran who played 12 seasons with the Bruins who also coached both the Bruins and the New York Islanders and spent a decade as the Isles’ GM. This past spring, Milbury wrote a measured and reasonable opinion piece for USA Hockey Magazine entitled “Changing the Checking Age Does Not Soften Our Sport.”
Milbury, a member of USA Hockey’s subcommittee on body checking, was advocating for the rule changes eventually adopted by the organization, bumping body checking to the Bantam age group.
“And when we do introduce checking, we need to teach players to check hard and check clean,” Milbury wrote. “No rational person or player wants to leave the rink knowing that he just broke someone’s jaw or he gave a guy a concussion that might alter his life. Nobody wants to live with that.”
No argument here. However, in his role as analyst for New England Sports Network, NHL Network, TSN, and NBC, Milbury sings a very different tune, often opting for a cartoonish persona while ranting about the “wussification” of hockey. Unlike his NBC counterpart Pierre Maguire, who consistently and vehemently criticizes head shots, Milbury comes off like a poor man’s Don Cherry during his rebuttals, scolding Maguire for going soft.
While that might make for great television “banter,” it’s exactly that type of mixed message that creates considerable ambiguity in the concussion debate, and often leaves interpretation up to the individual. In some instances, those individuals are parents and coaches with little background in the sport, and precious little appreciation for hockey’s time-honored code of conduct.
As a result, too many coaches teach “take the body” without knowing exactly what that means, or even without knowing exactly what an illegal hit is. Sadly, you find examples at almost any rink during youth hockey season.
On the positive side of the ledger, some television celebrities consider it part of their responsibility to teach the game to their viewers. Former NHL player and current Versus and NBC color commentator Eddie Olczyk, whose son played for the University of Massachusetts, constantly preaches the need for players to keep their sticks on the ice when delivering a body check. The argument is elegant in its simplicity — unless there’s an enormous disparity in the size of the players, the player delivering a check can’t possibly hit his opponent in the head if he (or she) keeps both hands on the stick with the stick blade on the ice.
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Concussions were Exhibit A during the lively debate that eventually led to USA Hockey’s vote to implement the Progressive Checking Skill Development Program, which delays body checking until the Bantam (13 and older) level. According to the organization, the initiative actually had its origins in skill development, but quickly came to encompass injuries as well.
“Over the past two years we began to evaluate how Squirt and PeeWee skaters play and react in similar on-ice situations,” USA Hockey officials stated in their proposal for the rule change. “We observed that Squirts tend to be more aggressive, and emphasize skills (skating, stickhandling, passing and body positioning) in an attempt to make plays. The conclusion was simply that players at the Squirt level attempt to play the game in the correct manner.
“However, in the same situations many PeeWee players react differently. What was observed was that players at the PeeWee level tend to either let the opponent get the puck first, so that they can initiate body contact, or they lay off so that they don’t get hit. Although this may not be true for every player, we have found that it is common and prevalent at all levels of PeeWee hockey throughout the United States.”
The organization relied on several Canadian studies indicating that the serious injury rate at the PeeWee level is four times greater in checking leagues compared to non-checking leagues, while the same two groups had nearly identical low injury rates in practice.
“What also came to light is the fact that, cognitively, the 11-year-old brain has not fully developed the ability to anticipate while multitasking,” USA Hockey officials said. “Anticipation is 50 percent of a player’s ability to protect himself and avoid heavy contact that leads to these serious injuries.”
This past June, USA Hockey approved a series of sweeping changes recommend by Dr. Michael Stuart, the organization’s chief medical officer who also happens to be the father of three professional hockey players (including former Boston Bruin Mark Stuart). Those changes include:
* Encouraging more body contact in the pre-body checking age categories by providing more training and support for coaches and referees.
* Tightening the standard of play for intimidation hits in the legal body checking age categories. Beginning in the 2011-12 season, legal body checking in games will begin at the Bantam age level (ages 13-14).
* Beginning in 2011-12, each USA Hockey coach will be required to take an age-specific training module providing details consistent with long-term athlete and childhood development principles.
* USA Hockey officials will annually host clinics emphasizing the standard of play. The 2011-12 clinics will focus on allowing more body contact consistent with the rules in pre-checking age categories and a tighter standard of play for roughing, cross-checking, boarding, charging, high-sticking and other intimidation hits.
* USA Hockey will monitor the on-ice management of games, relying on regular reports from local referee-in-chiefs, coach-in-chiefs and Association Coaching and Education administrators.
* USA Hockey will conduct research on the effect of the Progressive Checking Skill Development Program on risk reduction and skill development.
* The board also passed rules that prohibit any check that comes in contact with the head or neck.
Even legendary tough guy Brian Burke, general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, applauded the vote.
“This is absolutely what’s right for youth hockey,” said Burke, who also serves as the general manager of the U.S. Olympic team. “This will enhance skill and provide a better playing environment for kids of all ability levels.”
An essential part of the USA Hockey rule changes, said Dr. Alan Ashare, is making sure that coaches are adequately prepared to teach body checking effectively and within the rules.
“What USA Hockey has suggested for this proposed rule change is that, in addition to taking body checking out of PeeWee games, it is still teaching body checking in PeeWee practices and is requiring coaches to obtain online certification in the teaching of body contact and body checking,” said Ashare, chairman of USA Hockey’s Safety and Protective Equipment Committee. “USA Hockey will also require coaches to teach body contact techniques in the Termites, Mites, Squirts and PeeWees. This puts a big, but necessary, responsibility on the coaches.”
“The problem you have is a very simple one: Who’s going to teach it?” Ashare asked. “We’re assuming we have coaches that can do that. I’m telling you, I’m not so sure.”
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Ashare, mirroring USA Hockey’s American Development Model, also would like to see the number of practices increase and the number of games decrease. (USA Hockey recommends 15 games for Mites, 20 for Squirts, 30 for PeeWees, 35 for Bantams and 45 for Midgets). However, there’s bound to be considerable resistance from for-profit programs and leagues — especially those that also own the rinks — that earn considerably more money from official “games” compared to ice rentals for practices.
Another key component of the USA Hockey initiative is to educate coaches on the role of the on-ice officials, to foster a more cooperative environment, and to hold refs to a higher “no tolerance” standard while empowering them to call the game by the book.
“I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times I’ve gotten crap from a coach or player who didn’t understand that a blow to the head, no matter how good the check looks, is still a penalty,” said Tom Farmer, a 20-year USA Hockey official from Massachusetts. “I tell them every time, going to the box, ‘If you kept your arms/elbow/shoulder/stick down and didn’t hit in the head, it was a clean check.’ But they don’t get it.
“It is a serious problem that we refs get no help on from most coaches and players,” Farmer added. “Our job is to call injury-potential fouls, and if I see it, I’m calling it, whether I have to take grief or not.”
Ashare also supports the “fair-play point” model, which rewards additional points in the standings for youth hockey teams with fewer penalties. The shining model in the United States is Minnesota’s “Hockey Education Program,” where teams earn an additional point if they take fewer than 12 penalty minutes, win or lose. But the idea was first put into practice in Quebec more than a decade ago.
“It’s not new,” Ashare said.
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Manufacturers and retailers also have ramped up their commitment to producing and selling gear that makes the sport safer.
Bauer Hockey is one of the chief sponsors of BeHockeySafe.com, which offers practical advice on preventing and/or detecting injury, and consists of a number of leading medical experts in the field of head trauma. Reebok Hockey has introduced the innovative 11K helmet. And Cascade Sports, which has developed the M11 helmet in conjunction with Hall of Famer Mark Messier, supports The Messier Project, an “all-encompassing grassroots and educational initiative which aims to change priorities in the sport by encouraging athletes to play smart and choose the best protective equipment.”
“The M11 helmet is an important step in the right direction, but we believe that as manufacturers, the entire industry needs to come together and look at what we can do to make helmets better,” said Audra Silverman, who handles public relations for The Messier Project. “It is not enough to say that helmets can’t prevent concussions. We have an obligation to advance technology in order to provide players with the most protective equipment possible.”
Brendan Sheehy, co-owner of TSR Hockey in Salem, N.H., said the hockey consumer is becoming more aware that they ought to outfit themselves, or their children, from the helmet down, and not from the skates up.
“Customers have changed their buying habits from middle of the road to top-of-the-line or elite-level helmets,” Sheehy said. “We are seeing parents starting to identify concussion symptoms, and bringing kids to the doctors more often now then in the past.
“At the point of purchase, parents and consumer are listening to all the facts about all helmets,” he said. “The same consumer or parent will not do the same with gloves or pants or other protective gear. The helmet is now given special attention.”
But the question remains: Is new and improved gear also partly responsible for the rise of concussions? It’s a delicate question, given the economics involved. Yet many observers, from casual fans to professional analysts, have voiced concerns that helmets, and later cages and eye shields, have accelerated the erosion of the individual player’s sense of responsibility.
Similarly, improved elbow pads do a great job of preventing impact injuries for the player wearing them, but they also can be used as battering rams. According to numerous sources, including Ashare, Gallagher and Olczyk, that gets back to the larger issue of mutual respect, and coaches teaching not only the X’s and O’s of the game, but also imparting the rules of sportsmanship and regard for your opponent.
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Fortunately, my daughter’s teammate “Jimmy” recovered just fine, following a three-week precautionary period and clearance from his family physician. His folks should be commended — they made sure Jimmy got medical attention as soon as possible following his injury, and they gave him all the time he needed to heal completely. They also invested in a newer (and more expensive!) helmet.
But the incident also gave rise to a renewed dedication among the coaches and board members of our local youth hockey association. We posted a link on our Web site to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports” program. The “Heads Up” program provides “fact sheets” for players and parents that detail concussion symptoms and treatment and provide practical advice on how organizations can better prepare themselves for injuries (such as requesting details on any prior concussions).
And we plan to make certain our organization redoubles its efforts to emphasize good sportsmanship and fair play, not only for the sake of our kids, but also for the sake of our sport.
Your thoughts?
There may be no more critical issue facing hockey than the prevention and care of concussions. So, we want to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the issue on our Facebook page at facebook.com/NYHockeyJournal. We may print some of the best responses next issue.
This article originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of New York Hockey Journal.
Brion O’Connor can be reached at feedback@nyhockeyjournal.com
