Ken Dryden on concussions in Grantland

The always thoughtful Hall of Famer Ken Dryen on concussions in hockey (and football) and what needs to be done.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7036426/time-nhl-get-head-smart

The "head smart" movement is gaining momentum. Between the Crosby incident, Shanahan now in charge of player safety and articles like this, Bettman will have to act sooner rather than later.

My guess is that a lot less would change and for many fewer players than we think. My guess is also that many of the changes would make our games better, and not only for reasons of safety. If some rules are changed, players and coaches will find ways to adapt and to gain a competitive advantage, because that's what players and coaches do. They're dreamers and imaginers. They're competitive. They need to win. Once, players and coaches came up with the forward pass in both hockey and football and gave flight to sports that had become a static snarl of bodies. They'll do it again. The mediocre will dig in their heels — they fear they can't change — and usually that's enough to stop everything in its tracks.

 

Read this today and thought it was an excellent piece. It really is time to do something about this and, as Dryden points out, it's going to take more than 'tweaking'.

 

It's weird how the players can't seem to stop the violent cheap hits. Just the other night there was another brutal hit from behind into the boards in Philadelphia. All the talk and concern about the severity of the problem and Boom, another player takes a cheap shot at another. Maybe, this will sound nuts, but if they take off the helmets players might have more respect for opponents and play less wreckless. Don't like the way this problem is going.

 

Our Boom would never take a cheap shot.

And yes, taking off helmets sounds nuts.

This problem has been around for a long time. People just ignored it.

"You got your bell rung. Now get back out there". Those days are over.

 

What a great call to action by Dryden. His inclusion on the idiocy of fighting was welcome as well.

Hopefully with the increased spot light because it is Crosby who is affected and not some 4th line mucker, the voices of people like Dryden are not drowned out.

 

Great piece, thanks for the link. And "tweaking" only does so much as the size and speed of hockey and football players continues to increase, while our knowledge of the human brain (and how it can be injured) moves slowly.

As Dryden wrote, the problem can't be hidden anymore. Too many players and their families dealing with the aftermath of these injuries. Something needs to change.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1103/nhl-careers-ended-by-concussions/content.1.html

 

I don't know whether you can access this outside Canada but this CBC Documentary from 2008 is an investigation of the long term effects of concussions among players from the Grey Cup winning Edmonton Eskimos teams in the mid 80's

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/content/2008/11/head-games.html

The host Bob McKeown does great journalism and this is one of his best docs. He also played in the CFL for a number of years.

 

Tell that to Dave Duerson or ....

Jeez, really?

 

Yeah really. Football and hockey are violent contact sports. You want to eliminate concussions take away the contact, otherwise there will always be concussions.

This is not to say we can't try to make the game safer in either sport, there are things that can be done but there is always going to be risks.