Equipment: Revisit VT hockey star helmet ratings

[jj5406]

It looks like the Virginia Tech hockey star helmet ratings came out about a year ago (March 2015). I knew nothing about this until the other day, when I started looking for a replacement helmet for my 12yo daughter, who is in need of a new one. I'm wondering if there is any newer information or thought on this important topic.

It seems like there was some controversy when the study came out, with helmet companies and others jumping on the bandwagon to say how the study was limited and how the results should be taken with a grain of salt, if not ignored entirely. However, those reactions seemed very knee-jerk, and a little misleading. For example, they frequently mentioned that no helmet could entirely remove the risk of concussion (duh!, this is about *reducing* risk), talked about the likely exaggerated numbers in the VT study about #hits and #concussions that a player is likely to incur in a season (which may be true, but does not affect the *relative* protection comparison between helmets), and talked about the company's own years of research and development in helmet technology, without mention of any specific R&D aimed at reducing g-forces (the main factor in concussions) - though I see that some helmets are clearly concerned with addressing rotational acceleration, which could be a bigger factor than linear acceleration. I think the VT study mainly measured linear accelerations.

The thing is, if you just look at the inside of current hockey and football helmets, you can see a huge difference in padding. I get the feeling that hockey helmets have been designed for many years to prevent skull fractures, with almost no thought (even in recent years) given to concussion risk. And I think that helmet companies are trying very hard to not admit this, or admit how poor the current design of hockey helmets is in reducing the g-forces of impacts that lead to concussion.

No pun intended, but it seems like a no-brainer to add more padding inside of hockey helmets, while making the padding itself less stiff (to absorb more of the energy of the impact). I don't know why the hockey helmet industry is not ahead of the curve on this, given the press coverage on concussions and head injuries in football in the past 5 years.

Sure, this study was very limited and is short on data, but the methodology seems sound. And yes, how well a helmet fits is very important - but given two helmets of equal fit, I would certainly want to get the one that is ranked higher in this study.

It's been a year, now, so what are the current thoughts on this, and will we see "better" helmets in the next few years?

-J

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[MattGTI]

I'll preface this by saying I am 100% in favor of any and all testing that strives to help us understand injuries and/or lessening/preventing them in hockey.

Anything that helps us test out, re-evaluate, invent, anything in the form of protection and safety to the player is a good thing.

I think this test was flawed in many ways from the start, and looking back a year later, its not holding up any better.

One example would be-two helmets that were essentially the same, one branded Reebok, and one branded CCM were ranked very differently. How is that even possible?

 

[jj5406]

I would say that two identical helmets ending up with very different rankings are the result of two possible factors: 1) testing just too limited: too few hits on just a single helmet of each model, 2) poor quality control in helmet manufacturing: different helmets of the same model may vary significantly.

With more hits, and testing on many helmets of the same model, you can get a better idea of actual mean and standard deviation, and better rank the helmets. However, I think taken together, there is enough data to show that hockey helmets are lagging far behind football helmets in reducing the head accelerations that lead to concussion.

Despite all of their squawking, I haven't seen any hockey helmet manufacturers claim that they have done any testing on the ability of helmets to reduce g-forces. The minimal amount, and stiffness of the padding in most hockey helmets seems inadequate, and I think that is borne out by the data - though admittedly, I haven't seen the raw numbers. Even though the star rating is some probabilistic representation of the number of concussions, I think it is better viewed as a relative comparison.

The real question is, how accurate is it to compare the star rating of hockey helmets to football helmets? I'm not sure. But it seems that it is the ability to reduce accelerations that is important. If the avg. acceleration resulting from a particular type of impact on all tested football helmets is say, 50g, and avg. acceleration of the same type of impact on the all tested hockey helmets is 100g, then I would say that football helmet design is way ahead of hockey helmet design in protecting against concussion and head injury from that kind of impact. How much ahead? I guess you could also measure the acceleration on the head with no helmet, and that would give some kind of protection ratio for that kind of hit. I'd like to find those raw acceleration numbers (probably buried), but from an interview I heard with one of the researchers, it sounded like there was a significant difference in those numbers between hockey helmets and football helmets - meaning improved padding in hockey helmets could have a big effect.

Clearly, there are many confounding factors in coming up with a "star" rating, due to types, force and likelihood of different kinds of impacts in the different sports (supposedly weighted for in the studies), but if those measured accelerations are really as different as the researchers seem to be indicating, I think the hockey helmet industry has a lot of catching up to do.

In short, while the test and results may have many flaws - particularly with respect to individual helmets, there are strong indications that concussion protection in hockey helmets falls far short of what it could and should be, and hopefully will be in the future. It also seems that this type of testing (ie. for accelerations) has largely not been done in the past by hockey helmet manufacturers, but hopefully will be adopted soon.

Anyone know if companies like Bauer and CCM are working on improvements in this area?

 

[MattGTI]

Good points.

I also can't stress the point enough that football and hockey are entirely different games (I know groundbreaking thought, right?). The impact and dangers in regards to the head in each, have many different variables. This makes them almost entirely different case studies.

I just feel that the idea of reducing concussions/head injuries and the risk of, needs to start at a coaching and playing level and not at a protection level. Clearly it isn't where it needs to be.

As I said, lets keep an open dialogue and do every single test out there to understand things more, learn from the findings, and try and create a better product.

However, I just don't see any helmet ever truly preventing the brain from being sloshed around inside one's cranium upon impact.

 

[jj5406]

I think we are in agreement, I'm just worried about the focus.

> I just feel that the idea of reducing concussions/head injuries and the risk of, needs to start at a coaching and playing level and not at a protection level. Clearly it isn't where it needs to be.

That is absolutely true. And I think that USAHockey is definitely *trying* to do this at the youth level, however, that should not hamper the effort to simultaneously improve helmet technology as much as possible, and I think it potentially is. I see a kind of catch 22 here: I think that your point is that focusing on helmet technology will detract from teaching a mentality and style of play that reduces head injury risk. Sadly, I agree. I think it's human nature - in the same way that people apparently drive faster when wearing seat belts. But on the flip side, I also see focusing on this point (gotta start with how you play) detracting from quickly working towards making helmets as good as they can be.

Both are necessary.

Just as no helmet can prevent you from sustaining an injury in all situations, no amount of instruction is going to prevent all potentially dangerous situations from occurring.


> However, I just don't see any helmet ever truly preventing the brain from being sloshed around inside one's cranium upon impact.

Obviously true, but again, I see this kind of statement as giving companies an excuse to cop out and invest less in helmet technology. While true, it is no reason not to make the helmets as good as possible. It's all a matter of degrees. Anyone who thinks there will ever be a helmet that is 100% failsafe is a fool, but the more you can diminish those accelerations, the better the outcomes of unfortunate head blows will be. So you gotta make the helmets as good as you can until you reach a point of diminishing returns.

My daughter play's girl's hockey, and there are certainly fewer hits than the boys at the same level. But while checking is technically not allowed at any level, it is still very physical and that's part of the game. No matter how much you teach and reduce injury-causing play, there will still always be accidents (heck, you're moving around at high speeds, on a slippery surface, on two thin little blades). And when those accidents happen, your head is likely to hit a very hard surface at a significant velocity. And when you hit your head, the more your helmet reduces the cranial acceleration, the better shape you'll be in.

Interesting side-note. I heard a story about a college football team that did not wear helmets during at least part of their practice, during which they practiced tackling. Sounds crazy, and a recipe for disaster, but the idea is that it will really enforce how to tackle properly while avoiding head trauma. When you're head is not in a cage, you're more motivated to protect it. http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...s-concussion-problem-practice-without-helmets

Cheers.

-J

 

[cptjeff]

I have major questions about their methodology. For example, did they account for fit? Different helmets fit different shapes of head differently, and if they were using the same head model for all helmets (and I would be shocked if they weren't), the results would be significantly affected by how well each helmet fit that model.

Honestly, I would ignore it completely. Far too many questions in my mind for it to have any real validity. Buy the best helmet you can afford that fits your head the best.