Lucas Punkari
The discussion about concussions had been growing louder and louder of late as more and more injuries from head shots occurred in hockey, football, and a variety of other sports.
But all it took was an head injury to Pittsburgh Penguins’ captain Sidney Crosby back in January to send talk on the topic into over-drive.
“There has been more and more talk about it over the past few years as concussions have been on the rise, but I think it’s because Canada’s best hockey players got hurt that you have seen more of a discussion on the topic,” said Ron MacKinnon, president of the Fort Frances Girls’ and Women’s Hockey Association.
While Crosby’s injury is the most well-known currently, injuries from checks to the head have been occurring at all levels of hockey, with Emo’s Luke Judson suffering his first concussion of any kind back in March when his Belleville Bulls took on the Sudbury Wolves in OHL action.
“I was just in our own end waiting for a pass from the D-man, and the puck ended up going just a little bit ahead of me and I kind of leaned forwards into a vulnerable position when [Wolves’ captain] Marcus Foligno came in,” the Bulls’ captain recalled.
“I have heard from some people that they thought it was a dirty hit to the head, and I’ve heard from some others that it was the impact to the glass that was the bigger blow, but either way I knew my head wasn’t right as I struggled to get off the ice.
“I don’t think I knew it was a concussion right away, but I quickly knew that something was wrong,” Judson reiterated.
That injury left Judson out of the lineup for the rest of the regular season, along with Bulls’ first-round playoff loss to the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors, as he tried to get himself back into game shape.
“I was hoping to get back in there for the playoffs, but I had to go through quite a process before I could play again,” he explained.
“You need to have three days under your belt without having any symptoms at all, and you had to complete a light bike ride, a harder bike ride, a skate with no contact, and a skate with contact.
“And about a week-and-a-half after the hit, I had only got up to the light bike ride,” Judson noted.
“Obviously, I was pretty disappointed that I couldn’t get back out there and help out my team, but at the same time I was glad that I took my time in coming back to action,” he added.
After returning home for the summer months, Judson rested up for a few more weeks before hitting the gym yet again. But in the back of his mind, he wasn’t sure how things would go when he started working out for the first time following his concussion.
“Obviously, you have the best player out there in Sidney Crosby having his problems, and then you have other guys like Marc Savard and Marc Staal who are still having troubles with their concussions,” Judson remarked.
“I wasn’t sure how my head would react from the exercise and the different things in the gym before getting on the ice, so I was definitely careful that I didn’t go 100 percent until I knew I was ready,” he admitted.
“It was definitely a process but I’ve been fortunate that were wasn’t any more effects from that.”
But while fully healthy when the OHL pre-season began last month, there still was a bit of nervousness when Judson hit the ice, although any fears he had soon disappeared.
“In my second game of the pre-season I got clocked pretty good,” he recalled.
“Although it’s never fun to get hit, it was a real confidence-booster for me as I knew my head was fine after that hit and I knew that I could play with no trouble at all,” reasoned Judson, who is second in team scoring with six points in seven games.
Further down the ladder, local minor hockey associations are among those starting to deal with the issues about hitting, with Hockey Canada sending down strict guidelines for any contact to the head.
“Right now if a player falls down and a guy skates by and gives an accidental knee to the head, that’s a two-minute penalty right there,” noted Fort Frances Minor Hockey Association president Wayne Strachan.
“As an association, all we can do is trust that our referees are monitoring the situation and following those guidelines that Hockey Canada is sending down during those situations.
“Around the rink, you can see the signs that we put up about having zero tolerance towards head shots, and with our new video system we can communicate with our members about the changes in head shot rules and the crackdown this is starting to take place,” added Strachan, who also is head coach and general manager of the SIJHL’s Fort Frances Lakers.
Over at the FFGWHA, contact to the head also is a major issue—despite the fact that there is no checking in the women’s game.
“Even though there is no actual body checking, there is still a lot of contact out there,” MacKinnon stressed.
“As a result of that, we have implemented new rules this year where any contact with the head is an automatic penalty, which is also what you are seeing in the boys’ game also.”
The other major sport where concussions have become a major issue is football, with a crackdown on helmet-to-helmet hits making its way down to the high school ranks.
“This wasn’t even a point of discussion three years ago but it’s definitely moreso now,” said Muskie head coach Chad Canfield, who suffered a concussion while playing CIS football for Mount Allison.
“You always see the trickle-down effect of when the NFL does something, then the CFL and CIS will do something, and it comes do the high school levels with the increased emphasis on concussions, and it’s a very good thing,” Canfield stressed.
“You’re always a little bit torn, especially with the physical nature of football, as you don’t want to take the roughness out of the game as that is something that a lot of people are drawn to,” he reasoned.
“But as more and more research is being done, it’s a good thing to take those helmet-to-helmet hits out of the game and teach players how to hit properly in order to help reduce injuries, which is something that we put a lot of emphasis on during our practices,” Canfield added.
It’s not just hockey and football, though, where the risk of concussions can occur. Fort High athletic director Shane Beckett noted a head injury can happen in a variety of the sports the Muskies partake in during the course of a school year.
“Following those first two sports, soccer would be the next game where a risk of a concussion is high, and even cheerleading would fall into that category,” noted Beckett, who sustained a concussion of his own during his high school football career.
“You don’t hear it as much for the court sports like basketball and volleyball as there is no body contact happening there. But if you fall to the floor hard, the risk of that is still there,” he warned.
Over the last few years, Beckett has seen first-hand the change among high school sports about how the approach to players suffering any type of head injury has changed.
“I can think back to when I was playing high school football, where guys were getting the bells rung a lot, and the education wasn’t really there at that point for players so you just thought that you were playing hurt a lot of the time,” he explained.
“Now if anyone complains about a sort of headache or anything like that, they are immediately brought onto the sidelines.
“Sometimes it may seem like we are being hyper-vigilante, but it is better to go overboard on these sorts of things than to let something go right through the cracks,” he reasoned.
Looking towards the future, Beckett feels that in high school sports, there will be increased look at making sure the health of the student-athletes are looked at more closely, and with even more drastic measures taking place instead of just pulling a player out of a game.
“I’ve heard of schools in Minnesota, for instance, where they have a three-concussion rule. And if you suffer that many blows to the head when you are playing middle school or high school, you are no longer eligible to play any sports,” he explained.
“I hope that it doesn’t get to that point because what I think might end up happening is that players won’t be telling their coaches or their parents about any injuries that they have because they will be in fear of losing that athletic eligibility,” he stressed.
For hockey, though, the definitive answer to what will solve the concussion crisis remains a mystery—with many different ideas being bandied about.
In MacKinnon’s opinion, he believes changing the equipment players are wearing will change the way those who deliver those lethal blows approach those situations.
“I think that the equipment has now gotten to the point where the player doesn’t feel what they are doing, as they are in almost like a coat of armour,” MacKinnon noted.
“I remember playing when I was younger and I was wearing those leather elbow pads, and if you hit someone you felt it, as well.
“So I think if we go back to something along those lines, that those guys who deliver the hits will keep their elbow down if they can feel it, too.”
One league that has been among the most progressive with regards to hits to the head is the OHL, which made rule changes this season to where players must wear soft cap elbow and shoulder pads.
It also has handed out very steep suspensions for players who deliver those checks the past few years.
“I think that the OHL is one of the front-runners in doing things like with the shoulder pads and the rules they have,” said Judson.
“And with [NHL vice-president of player safety] Brendan Shanahan being very harsh in his suspensions this year so far, I think you are going to see a lot of leagues are going to see that and change the way that they do things.
“Personally, I think the suspensions are really going to change things for the players,” he added. “If they know that they are going be out for five, 10, or 12 games, I really think that they are going to think twice before hitting someone that’s in a vulnerable position.”
Along those lines of the players themselves, Strachan, who himself suffered a concussion while playing for the Rockford IceHogs, feels a proper respect among everyone playing the game would make a big difference.
“Personally, I think it’s that lack of respect for one another, and, obviously, the increase in speed from the last 15 years along with how the guys train now, that are big factors in the increase of head injuries,” he stressed.
“Maybe one of the things that we can look at in the game is to slow things down out there,” he remarked. “But this whole situation is something that we don’t really know what the answer is.”
