By Kevin Allen, USA TODAY
When New York Islanders veteran forward Brian Rolston had his “bell rung” earlier this season, he didn’t know he had a concussion until he realized he didn’t have answers for simple questions.
“Then I couldn’t name the last team I played against,” Rolston said. “I failed the test.”
Within a couple of days, Rolston was experiencing headaches and vertigo and ended up missing five games. According to USA TODAY research, Rolston is one of 71 NHL players who have missed time this season because of a concussion. That number will grow by one because the Boston Bruins said forward Nathan Horton suffered a mild concussion in Sunday’s game.
Based on an average roster size of 23, this means one of every 10 NHL players has already missed games. More than 850 games had been lost as of Sunday — totaling more than $30 million in prorated salary.
“I think people realize that this isn’t a broken arm or a broken leg. It’s a broken brain,” said former pro hockey player Kerry Goulet, founder of stopconcussions.com, a website launched last year to raise awareness of the issue.
Player agent Allan Walsh has been keeping track of the league’s concussion rate, and he says if the current rate continues there could be 110 by the end of the season. That means more than 15% of NHL players will have missed games.
“That’s why I say we have a concussion epidemic right now that has reached crisis proportions,” Walsh said.
Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke doesn’t see it as an epidemic.
“We are diagnosing them properly and the man-game losses are up because we are treating them properly,” he said.
Last season, the league adopted an in-game protocol designed to identify players with concussions. This season, it tightened rules on dangerous hits.
Culture is changing
Former NHL player Tom Laidlaw says the biggest change in the league’s concussion approach is acceptance of the idea that a player should never try to play through one.
Laidlaw, who played from 1980-81 until 1989-90, remembers playing for a week or longer with headaches he experienced after a blow to the head. He was knocked out in a playoff game by New York Islanders player Bob Nystrom and still took his final two shifts.
“It was a forearm shiver to the jaw,” he recalled. “There was five minutes left in the game, and I kept playing, even though I didn’t remember playing.”
Laidlaw said he later was told that he went into the dressing room and sat at his stall for several minutes without removing his equipment.
“I was just babbling about stupid things,” he said. “I got up to walk into the training room, and I passed out.”
He was carried out on a stretcher, spent the night in the hospital and then played the next playoff game two days later with a massive headache.
“It shows you how different it is now with regard to concussions,” Laidlaw said, “because I remember the guys saying, ‘Tom, you’re the best’ and all that because I was playing after getting out of the hospital. I remember Nystrom and I were out there together on our first shift, and I went out and hit him. And I remember Barry Beck was slapping me on the back and saying ‘Way to go.’ “
Deputy commissioner Bill Daly called the concussion issue a difficult one and said the NHL is working to raise “the level of awareness on the issue among our clubs, coaching and training staffs, team physicians, fans and, most importantly, our players.”
“While it is not a positive story, I think the focus and attention this issue is receiving in the media is a direct result of our collective efforts to raise awareness of the seriousness of the issue,” he said.
Some teams have been profoundly affected.
The Penguins have lost eight players at times this season, including Sidney Crosby and their top minutes defenseman in Kris Letang, who missed 21 games before returning last week. The New York Islanders have lost seven and the Philadelphia Flyers six.
Defensemen Chris Pronger and Radek Martinek have been shut down for the season already.
“You see real warriors out (of the lineup), and they all say the same story,” said former NHL player and coachTerry Crisp, now an analyst with the Nashville Predators. “They are out two weeks and they feel good, and then two days later they are nauseous and can’t stand the light or noise. And these are the warriors. That’s what scares me.”
Of the 71 players who have suffered concussions this season, 48 have returned. Of those, 19 lost five or fewer games and 15 more lost between six to 10 games.
Uncertainty is the norm
The added aggravation of a concussion is that it’s impossible to project how long a player will be out.
“I’ve stopped asking the doctor and trainer,” Burke said. “I just wait until I get a report that he is is riding the bike.”
The league protocol requires a slow buildup to returning to competition. A player needs to ride a stationary bike without symptoms before he can return to the ice.
“If he is asymptomatic that’s a major step,” Burke said. “Now there is a light at the end of the tunnel … but you don’t know if the tunnel runs from here to Spain.”
Minnesota Wild forward Guillaume Latendresse sat out 15 games before returning on Dec. 13. In his second game back, his symptoms returned and he has been out since.
Crosby sat out 320 days, then played eight games before having more symptoms. He hasn’t played since Dec. 5. The initial hope for Letang was a short stay on injured reserve.
“First it seemed like he broke his nose, and then 48 hours later he has symptoms and you are, ‘Oh boy, here we go again,’ ” Penguins GM Ray Shero recalled.
Michael Stuart of the Mayo Clinic, USA Hockey‘s chief medical officer, believes the strides in treating concussion have been made “in communicating better to our athletes that you don’t play through a traumatic brain injury or concussion.”
“For as long as you want to go back, I absolutely know that guys were playing with concussions,” Rolston said. “Now you get your bell rung, and there’s a doctor on you. The league is being more proactive.”
This season, Toronto’s Colby Armstrong hid his symptoms for a day, but he didn’t play a game. “I think teammates and trainers are alert to it,” Burke said. “If you are dopey or dozey, I think one of your teammates would rat on you. And that is a good thing.”
Stuart, whose son Mark plays for the Winnipeg Jets, says that’s important because if athletes return too soon they are at risk for another concussion “with more severe consequences and even longer recovery.”
When Stuart counsels athletes with concussions, he informs them that symptoms generally resolve quickly. He then explains the protocol for steps toward recovery. And then he says, “When you will return to play is sometime between a week and never.”
Stuart says he tells athletes that because it gets their attention.
“The overwhelming majority of athletes will feel very good within days,” Stuart said. “And we can get them back playing in weeks. But they have to realize that there is no cookbook. There is no set time schedule. Every athlete’s care after a concussion is individualized.”
Stuart said he knows pro athletes with concussions who could ride a bike for 10 minutes without a problem but would have a splitting headache if they rode for 15 minutes.
Crosby has said at the worst periods of his concussion issues, he couldn’t watch television or listen to the radio.
“I had trouble with my balance,” Rolston said. “I just didn’t feel well.”
The other frustrating aspect of the concussion issue is that they’re occurring in a wide variety of ways. Some have resulted from direct blows to the head, while others have occurred by players falling on the ice or colliding with teammates.
GMs expected to tackle issue
Concussions likely will be on the general managers’ agenda at their March meeting.
Walsh has been an outspoken proponent of putting the red line back in play to slow down players in the neutral zone. He thinks that would help eliminate some of the high-speed collisions that are causing devastating injuries.
Shero said he would like to see general managers discuss eliminating the trapezoid rule and allow goalies to play the puck anywhere behind the goal line. Originally in favor of the rule, he can see now that it has become dangerous for defensemen who have forwards hitting them at full speed as they go back to play the puck.
“The analogy I use is that defensemen have become like punt returners in football who signal for a fair catch and get steamrolled anyway,” Shero said.
The NHL has been looking to downsize equipment because the modern larger, hardened protective gear seems to be causing damage when players collide. “I took a look at an elbow pad the other day, and if it was an elbow, you would drain it because it’s huge,” Shero said.
Said Walsh: “(Some) will say, ‘More speed means more excitement. But it’s just not true. The game can still be fast. But the area where the speed needs to be controlled — where we need to put a governor on the engine — is the neutral zone. If you can do that, and remove the gratuitous collisions in the corners on dump and chases, and remove the body armor, you are going to do a lot to bring down (concussion) numbers.”
There long has been discussion about whether switching to the wider European hockey rink size might help, but Goulet said he has been hearing that European teams have had similar concussion issues.
Retired Keith Primeau, whose career was cut short by a concussion, wants the league to do more, such as a total ban on head shots.
“Are we further ahead than where we were a year ago? Yes,” he said. “Are we where we need to be? No.”
Stuart said the Mayo Clinic’s concussion summit in 2010 came up with some action items to help reduce the threat of concussions. They included more education for players and others in the hockey world and banning blows to the head
“We couldn’t get anyone to listen to us about concussions,” Goulet said. “I remember saying on a show, ‘Wait until (Alex) Ovechkin or (Crosby) goes down.’ Now we are living that right now.”
Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/hockey/nhl/story/2012-01-23/costly-concussions/52762290/1
