The never ending incidents of on ice-thuggery, including hits to the head, a recent one involving QMJHL star Patrice Cormier, along with other factors including body checking in minor hockey, has turned hockey into our most dangerous game. These horrible incidents smack of everything that is wrong with hockey in our country: poor leadership; elitist and exclusionary, lofty and unrealistic expectations; overzealous coaches and parents and no fun and recreational benefits for the players.

The long-term brain damage suffered by Reggie Fleming during his professional playing career, as revealed by researchers at Boston University, should serve as a wake-up call for those Canadians concerned with the health and safety of all players, especially minor leaguers, and the future of the game as we know it. The release of these findings coincided with statements made by Toronto neurosurgeon Charles Tator at the recent Hockey Canada sponsored concussion seminar who said there has been too much emphasis on “sock’em, kill’em type of hockey” in minor hockey. Dr. Tator has been a long-time advocate of findings better ways to make hockey a safer game.
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From: Emile Therien – To: editorial@reddeeradvocate.com
Dear Editor,
With much interest, I read this article: Meeting injuries head-on.

The never ending incidents of on ice-thuggery, including hits to the head, a recent one involving QMJHL star Patrice Cormier, along with other factors including body checking in minor hockey, has turned hockey into our most dangerous game. These horrible incidents smack of everything that is wrong with hockey in our country: poor leadership; elitist and exclusionary, lofty and unrealistic expectations; overzealous coaches and parents and no fun and recreational benefits for the players.
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Friday, 09.18.2009 / 5:03 PM / News
NHL.com
DALLAS, DENVER — Concussions are by far the most common, and one of the most difficult to manage injuries seen in sports today. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are between 1.6 million and 3.8 million brain injuries that occur in sports each year — and 63,000 occur in high school athletes alone. The National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN) and National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) have joined forces on a national and local grassroots campaign to educate the public, athletes, health professionals, coaches, parents, administrators and others about concussion in sports. The overarching objective of the campaign is to raise awareness of the importance of identifying concussions and implementing appropriate management when they do occur.
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The Canadian Press

LONDON, Ont. — Fighting should be eliminated from hockey at all levels of the game, according to recommendations released Tuesday from an expert panel dealing with concussions in hockey.

“Fighting is one of the known causes of concussion, and may result in the related long-term complications,” the panel’s summary statement says. “Fighting can cause needless death.”

The recommendations, resulting from meetings at the London Hockey Concussion Summit on Jan. 17-18, also calls from an elimination of high hits/head hits.

“Those are significant ones,” Summit chair Dr. Paul Echlin said. “The reduction of hits from behind has had a major effect on the incidence of broken necks in hockey and similarly, the reduction of high/head hits should reduce the incidence of concussions.”

Panellists on The Concussion Summit included four former players, three of whom were knocked out of the National Hockey League as the result of concussions – Eric Lindros, Jeff Beukeboom and Alyn McCauley – along with Canadian national women’s team player Jennifer Botterill, who was sidelined for a protracted period with concussion.

Echlin stresses, however, that there was no consensus on all the recommendations.

“The recommendations in this statement are designed to serve as a framework for future discussion, and to promote significant change concerning the prevention, recognition, and management of concussions in hockey,” the statement says.

Echlin and co-chair Dr. Charles Tator, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto, put their recommendations together via e-mail with the participants after poring over the minutes of the day-after meeting.

The recommendations will go to the media, various hockey groups and medical associations.

Along with the rules recommendations, the panel advised a concussion certification program in which trainers, coaches and officials would gain knowledge aimed at recognizing and treating concussion.

Those teams that have pre-season physicals with medical professionals, Echlin said, have added benefits. Few young players ever see a doctor and physicals sometimes indicate problems other than neurological, such as cardiac-related.

Other recommendations in today’s release are the adoption of an NHL/Ontario Hockey League role model program, studies leading to a data collection system, pre-season screening and a survey of protective equipment.

Echlin and Tator said were gratified by the turnout of 380 hockey people Jan. 17 and felt a step closer to their goal – a unified body that involves all levels of hockey and could expand into other sports.

Football Canada was a non-hockey participant in the recommendations along with the NHL, NHL Players’ Association, the OHL, Ontario Hockey Association, Ontario Hockey Federation along with a number of medical and therapeutic bodies.

Echlin said the prospective name for a central agency dealing with concussion is Hockey Concussion Initiative, which would first involve hockey and ultimately serve as a model for all sports in which head injuries occur such as football, soccer, rugby, skiing, skateboarding and cycling.

“Sometimes, events like the Concussion Summit are held and everyone departs until another one is held,” Echlin said in an interview. “Our goal is to move forward from this and work to find solutions to a growing problem”.

Echlin has hands-on experience with concussion this season.

Six of 23 players on the junior development team he works with have suffered concussion, one requiring disqualification for the remainder of the season.

GATINEAU, Québec—The Brain Injury Association of Canada (BIAC) calls on Canadians to contact their Member of Parliament and declare their support for Private Members Bill C-289, which would amend the Hazardous Products Act so as to prohibit the advertising, sale, or import into Canada, of recreational snow sport helmets that do not meet a national standard. The amendment is being re-introduced, today, by the Honourable Dr. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre), in an attempt to have it passed by Cabinet through an Order-in-Council.

“It would be significant if this is done in time for Canada’s 2010 Olympics,” explains Dr. Fry. The Canadian Medical Association, BIAC, and various organizations which promote preventable injuries, are all in support of this proposed amendment to the law.
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HAYLEY MICK
From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
January 28, 2009 at 9:41 AM EST

Athletes who suffered concussions in their youth show a far more rapid mental decline as they grow older, according to a new Canadian study that suggests sports-related head injuries may plant the seed for Alzheimer’s disease.

The study, which looked at university-level hockey and football players now in their early 60s, found that the group who had no history of concussion scored much higher in tests of memory, motor skills and reaction time compared with former athletes who had suffered one or more concussions at least 30 years ago.
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Hunting the headhunters – Red Baron reflects on then and now

By James Duthie, The Ottawa Citizen, January 17, 2009

The late afternoon was sunny, and crisp, and begging for shinny.

This is our first winter in a new town, and my nine-year-old boy had been asking me for weeks to find him an outdoor rink.

I hadn’t, and for that, like Denis Lemieux, I feel shame. Between the boy’s rep hockey, his two sisters’ dance classes, swimming lessons, Mom’s yoga, and Dad spending all his nights asking other men in make-up if Lecavalier should be traded, there never seems to be time to find a patch of ice. And just … play.

But last Monday after school, all the daytimers were magically clear. So when the kid next door came calling, stick and skates in hand, saying there was a full-size rink at a school just a few blocks away, we were in toques and longjohns at Usain Bolt-speed.
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From CBC Sports
The Ontario Hockey League announced a new rule on Wednesday to address the issue of players losing their helmets during fights, whether intentionally or otherwise.

OHL commissioner David Branch had indicated earlier in the week the rule would be implemented, and it is effective beginning with games on Thursday.

“If a player should remove his helmet or undo his chinstrap prior to or during an altercation, such player shall receive a game misconduct in addition to any other penalties assessed and an automatic one-game suspension,” the new rule states.

If a player removes his helmet and an opposing player doesn’t, the penalty is two games.

If the player’s helmet becomes accidentally dislodged during a fight, the new rule requires linesmen to intervene immediately.

The issues of helmets and fighting have come to the fore in the province since the death Jan. 2 of senior AAA player Don Sanderson.

Sanderson, 21, was in a coma for nearly three weeks after an incident in a Dec. 12 game. The Whitby Dunlops player was without a helmet when his head struck the ice during an altercation with a Brantford player.

The reaction has spanned from those proposing an outright ban on fighting to concern that players will continue to fight with helmets and visors on, potentially leading to more injuries.

Read More: Toronto Star – Times Colonist – Chronicle Herald

DUNLOPS PLAYER SUFFERS SEVERE HEAD INJURY IN FIGHT from TSN
A 21-year-old member of the Whitby Dunlops Senior hockey team remains in critical condition in Hamilton General Hospital with a severe head injury suffered Friday night when his head struck the ice in a fight in Brantford, Ont.

Don Sanderson, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound defenceman who attends York University, is in a coma, according to the Dunlops’ official website. The site’s last update at 11:05am et today said there was some optimism this morning after some movement was detected in Sanderson’s arm.

A member of the Dunlops who was interviewed on a Toronto radio station earlier in the day said Anderson “is on life support.”

Sanderson fought Brantford’s Corey Fulton at 2:14 of the third period. Both players were assessed fighting majors and game misconducts. Fighting in the Major League Hockey, formerly known as Ontario Senior A, is punishable with automatic ejection from the game. According to witnesses, Sanderson’s helmet came off as part of the fight and both players fell to the ice, with Sanderson’s head striking the ice surface.

Sanderson, a native of Port Perry, Ont., played in the Ontario Provincial Junior Hockey League for the Ajax Attack and Trenton Sting.

The Dunlops played Saturday night – beating Orillia/Coldwater 9-4 – with No. 40 stickers on their helmets and Sanderson’s No. 40 sweater hung up over the bench.