Concussions are, and will remain, a major issue - The Boston Globe
McAvoy, who needed some seven weeks to recover from a mid-October concussion, fortunately proved none the worse for wear. He was ordered to the dressing room by the league’s off-ice concussion spotter, and soon was back on the Boston bench, though coach Bruce Cassidy chose not to roll him out again in what turned into a chippy night — thanks in large part to the cheap, predatory hit by Hyman.
The list, just in Cassidy’s tenure, includes Ryan Spooner, Rick Nash, Tuukka Rask, Backes (twice), Urho Vaakanainen, McAvoy, and now DeBrusk. It cuts across ages, positions, heights and weight, experience and wages. Brain injuries don’t discriminate among their victims. They can be the products of a running elbow to the head, a pile-drive into the boards, or something as routine as a drive-by smack. McAvoy, who reported feeling rotten after the club’s Oct. 18 game in Edmonton, had yet to figure what rattled his head.
Unlike McAvoy’s case, the off-ice concussion spotter did not order DeBrusk to the room. He looked dazed initially, missed a shift, but ultimately took a few turns before the third period ended.
“That’s NHL driven, we have no say in that,” noted Cassidy, when asked about the spotter not prompting action in Toronto.
“If he goes off, we can’t contest it. But our medical guys will say, ‘Hey, Jake, we gotta talk here, how do you feel?’ And I assume the player will respond, ‘It stung a little, I’m fine.’ Or it’ll be, ‘I’m goofy’, or whatever it is, and you go on from there. So with Jake it probably stung a little and maybe . . . I don’t know his history, but maybe he’s never really had a concussion, so he thought well, ‘OK, you’re supposed to be sore if you take a puck in the head.’ And maybe it snowballed from there and he realized, ‘This isn’t right.’ I assume that’s what happened with Jake.”
McAvoy, who needed some seven weeks to recover from a mid-October concussion, fortunately proved none the worse for wear. He was ordered to the dressing room by the league’s off-ice concussion spotter, and soon was back on the Boston bench, though coach Bruce Cassidy chose not to roll him out again in what turned into a chippy night — thanks in large part to the cheap, predatory hit by Hyman.
The list, just in Cassidy’s tenure, includes Ryan Spooner, Rick Nash, Tuukka Rask, Backes (twice), Urho Vaakanainen, McAvoy, and now DeBrusk. It cuts across ages, positions, heights and weight, experience and wages. Brain injuries don’t discriminate among their victims. They can be the products of a running elbow to the head, a pile-drive into the boards, or something as routine as a drive-by smack. McAvoy, who reported feeling rotten after the club’s Oct. 18 game in Edmonton, had yet to figure what rattled his head.
Unlike McAvoy’s case, the off-ice concussion spotter did not order DeBrusk to the room. He looked dazed initially, missed a shift, but ultimately took a few turns before the third period ended.
“That’s NHL driven, we have no say in that,” noted Cassidy, when asked about the spotter not prompting action in Toronto.
“If he goes off, we can’t contest it. But our medical guys will say, ‘Hey, Jake, we gotta talk here, how do you feel?’ And I assume the player will respond, ‘It stung a little, I’m fine.’ Or it’ll be, ‘I’m goofy’, or whatever it is, and you go on from there. So with Jake it probably stung a little and maybe . . . I don’t know his history, but maybe he’s never really had a concussion, so he thought well, ‘OK, you’re supposed to be sore if you take a puck in the head.’ And maybe it snowballed from there and he realized, ‘This isn’t right.’ I assume that’s what happened with Jake.”
