I'm actually concerned about concussions. If they could somehow treat them with 100% recovery and no long term effects, I'd be fine with a this type of hit. Any other type of recoverable injury, fine. But with the research around this stuff, I have a tough time enjoying this part of the game, or chalking it up to 'part of the game'.
Probert, Boogaard, Rypien, Belek, Montador. The link between CTE, depression, suicide and long term mental health issues should concern anyone who watches the sport.
My question with CTE/concussion syndrome is the NHL has a long history, players didn't wear helmets and fighting was much more common with every team having a few enforcers/goons and probably more hitting. And the players were not that much smaller, one only has to look at famous photos of Howe and Hull shirtless. We didn't hear about depression and suicides of retired players, old time players do say they were no doubt concussed many times but never diagnosed but you didn't miss games because of a hit the previous night made you see stars and unable to remember where you were.
So there are possibilities, that old time players have suffered from depression related to CTE/concussions but we just never learned about them, people back in the day were much more private about their personal problems. Although suicides of ex-NHLers would have become known and I can't remember one enforcer from the 50s-60s known to have committed suicide. I don't know if suicides in general have increased over the decades, perhaps there are players who slowly committed suicide with alcohol to deal with their depression and other symptoms.
The other possibility is today's players overall are bigger, faster and stronger and the protective equipment, the shoulder and elbow pads specifically are much bigger and harder so hits do take a bigger toll on the brain. The boards/glass definitely have much less give in them. So I'd think that has to contribute to more concussions, more severe concussions anyway.
I wonder if the NHL and NHLPA has taken a retrospective look at players from the 50s,60s and 70s by contacting them and doing interviews with them and/or their survivors to see how many have suffered from symptoms that could be related to CTE and comparing the data collected to the general population of men of their ages.
My hunch is things are more dangerous now for players due to speed/size/rinks/equipment and the problems of previous generations of NHLers are undocumented and/or under reported.
I'd take the upper body equipment right out of the control of the players and the equipment industry, you play in our league, we will work with the NHLPA and come up with stock shoulder and elbow pads, you will wear them and you won't modify them on your own.
I'm still mystified by the apparent difference in severity of concussions from previous generations of players. There are those out there who think it's bs, same people who think depression and other mental illnesses aren't caused by organic brain dysfunction, that we're just not as tough as people once were. This is bs but it's out there. Today's hockey and football players are just as tough or more. I've read many first person accounts of post concussion syndrome, amazing ones on The Players Tribune, most recent by Gabe Landeskog, and they are frightening. Tough young guys who become shells of themselves, crying like babies, can't be left alone, they need their parents and/or wives to watch over them, need to be in the dark, living in a fog. Some lose their balance and coordination and only time and rehabilitation bring those back to normal. Surely this had to happen to some players in the 60s and 70s, no amount of toughness can make you able to continue to keep playing when you're unable to handle daylight and are constantly crying. But I've never heard an old time player describe anything that severe.
Both the NHL and NFL have to find ways to make the game safer or there will be less kids allowed to play the game and they'll lose fans who can't stomach watching lives destroyed by the game. I say that and then I think of UFC, I'm not a fan of it but I do watch it with friends occasionally when there's a big event and I'm stunned by it, I think to myself 'How in 2017 is this even legal?'. Bloodlust runs deep in our DNA, people like to watch violence. We never outlawed boxing but we did pass laws/regulation to make it safer. So I don't see the NHL and NFL going away and I don't see them ever taking the hitting out. I'm not a lawyer but I've wondered why the NHL and NFL's standard player contract just didn't contain a clause saying 'This is a dangerous sport, you assume the risk of injury and even death that may come from playing the sport.' At least from this point on, I know the lawsuits are arguing that the NHL and NFL had knowledge of health risks and they were kept from the players.
