Concussions, head trauma have some reconsidering hockey's quaint on-ice code of justice

Canadian Press 2011-05-16


Detroit Red Wing opponents knew better than to mess with Steve Yzerman. Take a cheap shot at him—or any of the other Wings, for that matter—and you'd have to answer to Bob Probert and, in later years, Darren McCarty.

It was an on-ice code of justice, and it's proven so effective over the years that players like Probert, McCarty and Derek Boogaard built careers dishing out punishing hits.

But Boogaard's sudden death Friday five months after a season-ending concussion, and his family's decision to donate his brain to the Boston University project that found Probert had signs of brain trauma resulting from blows to the head, is bringing added scrutiny to fighting's place in the NHL.

"I think the league does a good job. They're trying to limit head shots," Tampa Bay Lightning centre Nate Thompson said Monday. "I don't think they can (ban fighting entirely). That's part of the game. It's a physical sport and it always has been. If they take that out of the game that takes a part of the history out of the game."

Like football, hockey is a game of controlled violence. Players are skating full-speed around an enclosed rink, and collisions—some intentional, some not—are bound to happen. Referees are there to make sure transgressions are punished. But when they don't, or don't see them occur, that's when players take matters into their own hands.

Boston's Big Bad Bruins brought the rough-and-tumble style to the ice, and the Philadelphia Flyers' Broad Street Bullies are considered the role models for modern-day enforcers. What people forget is that the Flyers only started beating people up because owner Ed Snider got tired of other teams picking on his.

"That fighting stuff way overshadowed the talent we had on the team," Bob (the Hound) Kelly said. "We don't have talent, we don't win anything."

But the Flyers did win, hoisting the Stanley Cup in 1974 and '75.

By the 1980s, every team had an enforcer or two whose primary role was to protect his teammates by whatever means necessary, whenever necessary.

"These guys are so big and strong," said Dave (the Hammer) Schultz, who often wrapped his hands in tape for protection and set an NHL record in the 1974-75 season with 472 penalty minutes. "We weren't big and strong. I could punch a guy, hit him right in the nose, and he's not going to get a concussion. But I didn't train to punch."

Advances in equipment and rules changes elevated the level of fighting. Schultz said he never would have slammed into opponents shoulder- or headfirst because it would have hurt him. But players now wear helmets with face shields, and football-like padding.

Players can now pass all the way up to their opponents' blue-lines, increasing the speed of the game. And like every other sport, the players have been super-sized.

"The game has gotten very fast, much faster than it's ever been," said Stan Fischler, the MSG hockey analyst and leading NHL historian. "And the players are much bigger than they've ever been so, as a result, collisions are at a higher speed."

The NHL has tried to limit the damage from fighting, ejecting and suspending players who leave the bench for a brawl. It also passed the "instigator" rule, slapping a two-minute minor penalty of the player that started the fight—though some say the rule has caused more problems than good because it doesn't necessarily punish the initial troublemaker.

This year, the NHL banned blindside hits that target an opponent's head.

But fights are part of the game's appeal, much like NASCAR's fender-benders or driver spats. While college hockey has made its punishments so severe that fighting has all but disappeared at that level, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has made it clear the fisticuffs will never disappear entirely from the pro game.

"We celebrate the big hit, we don't like the big head hit," Bettman said last month. "There is an important distinction because we celebrate body-checking."

And the fighting does serve a purpose, players insist. There are only two referees and two linesmen, and they can't see everything. Without that fear of retaliation, the violence could easily get out of hand.

"It's a tool that you can use to help control what happens on the ice," said Rob Ray, the Buffalo Sabres enforcer whose habit of taking off his helmet, jersey and pads during fights prompted the NHL to punish the practice. "Since they put in the 'instigator' rule, the levels of hitting from behind and head shots and dirty shots and that kind of thing have increased.

"I'm not sitting here saying fighting is the greatest thing in the word, but know it curbed a lot of that type of play," added Ray, now part of the Sabres broadcast team. "If you were going to hit somebody like that, you knew there was going to be somebody you'd have to answer to."

Added McCarty, "What's going to stop a guy from slapping your best player on the wrist or being dirty when there's no retribution to it?"

But as more is learned about the devastating impact of concussions and head trauma, there is growing concern about players' long-term health. Sidney Crosby, the NHL's marquee player, hasn't played since January after absorbing hits in consecutive games. Boston's Patrice Bergeron missed the first game of the Eastern Conference finals with a concussion.

There is no known concussion connection to Boogaard's death, but his family donated his brain to the BU Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at his wish. Boogaard was approached by researchers after Probert's death.

"You just wish somehow we could cut down on those concussions," Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "Not necessarily for the game of hockey, but more for the individuals. We know how serious those things are, and somehow they seem to be creeping up in our game. We're trying to find ways to minimize those."

___

AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen and Dan Gelston contributed to this report.

Tracking down the Sharks' 'Missing Link'

By Mark Emmons

memmons@mercurynews.com
Posted: 05/16/2011



Link Gaetz, the fearsome enforcer who became a Bay Area cult figure during the Sharks' inaugural season two decades ago, was living up to his nickname: The Missing Link.

Friends hadn't heard from him in months. Somebody thought the retired hockey brawler might be working on a pipeline in remote Canada.

"I'm not missing," countered Gaetz when finally tracked down this month, amused that anyone thought he had pulled another disappearing act.

In fact, he is living in Surrey, British Columbia, just outside of Vancouver, where he works for a recycling company and is rooting for the Sharks in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

At age 42, he also wonders what might have been in a promising career derailed by alcohol-fueled incidents -- punctuated by a Highway 101 car wreck that prematurely ended his NHL days.

"I made some really donkey decisions and did some stupid things," Gaetz said. "I definitely wish I could take a lot of that back. But when you're 23 years old and pretty much have the hockey world by the (tail), it's tough when you're not grounded. But there's nothing you can do now, eh?"

Except perhaps improve your life today. Gaetz said he has been sober for a year. He also has left something else behind.

"I don't fight anymore," he said.

For the uninitiated, Gaetz might be the most memorable player in Sharks franchise history.

"He's the legend," said Drew Remenda, a former Sharks assistant coach and current team broadcaster. "He's D.B. Cooper. He's Bigfoot. He's the Loch Ness Monster. And his legend has only grown with time."

With blond hair, a heavy shot and heavier fists, Gaetz was a 6-foot-3, 240-pound package of unpredictable violence -- on and off the ice. Gaetz played just 48 games for the Sharks, all in that first year, and he still holds the team record for most penalty minutes in a season with 326.

"He was the scariest hockey player there ever was," said Nick Fotiu, a former NHL tough guy who tried to mentor Gaetz. "People talk about Gordie Howe being mean. But Link? He intimidated everybody, including his coaches."

For a Sharks team that won just 17 games its debut season, Gaetz's eagerness to drop the gloves with NHL heavyweights such as Bob Probert gave Cow Palace fans a reason to cheer.

"Everything was new, and we weren't very good, so people latched onto Link," said Ken Arnold, the team's senior director of communications. "He was the king."

But the Sharks knew they were getting trouble as well as talent when they claimed Gaetz in the 1991 expansion draft.

"One of the meanest kids playing hockey. ... He's one of the meanest kids alive," Sharks director of player personnel Chuck Grillo said at the time.

The Minnesota North Stars originally had picked the British Columbia native in the second round of the 1988 draft.

"I knew he was different when he showed up for the draft with two black eyes," said Mike Modano, the team's No. 1 selection that year.

Those came in a bar fight.

After the Sharks took him off the North Stars' hands, Gaetz spent a few days in jail for shooting out a stained-glass window at a Minnesota church. He arrived at Sharks training camp with a cut below one eye that he joked was the result of a knife fight.

Such antics were why former North Stars general manager Lou Nanne famously said of Gaetz: "I drafted Mike Modano in the first round to protect our franchise. I drafted Link Gaetz in the second round to protect Mike Modano. I should have drafted a lawyer in the third round to protect Link Gaetz."

The Sharks paired Gaetz with their most stable player -- team captain Doug Wilson, now the Sharks' general manager. It didn't help.

"It wasn't every day where he would be this wild man," Remenda said. "But once every couple of weeks something would happen, from speeding down a residential street at 80 mph to throwing a TV out a window."

In his final NHL game, Gaetz earned a 10-game suspension for instigating an altercation at the Cow Palace with the Pittsburgh Penguins' bench after the final horn.

Then on April 2, 1992, he was thrown from a car in a crash. (The friend who was driving was charged with DUI.) Unconscious for several hours, Gaetz suffered a brain stem injury that initially left him partially paralyzed.

He attempted a comeback with the Sharks, but his motor skills were never the same. When he was arrested for his own DUI that fall, the team had enough and traded him to Edmonton.

"Not a day goes by that I don't wish that I didn't get in my car accident, because it changed everything," Gaetz said.

He became a wandering minor-leaguer, playing in cities ranging from Anchorage to Mexico City, rarely lasting a full season and sometimes showing up on local police blotters.

Gaetz last played in Quebec's Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey, where players basically are paid to fight. His pro career ended in 2005 when he changed out of uniform and got a hamburger at a concession stand during a game. That same year he competed in a pay-per-view event called The Battle of the Hockey Enforcers, getting knocked down twice in an opening-round loss.

He hasn't picked up a stick since 2007.

"I don't know where all the stories about the bad stuff came about," Gaetz said. "But I guess if you do a few things, they get blown out of proportion. Well, at least there was a little exaggeration."

The passage of time has brought some reflection.

"I think it boiled down to drinking," Gaetz said. "Whenever I got drunk, I got into trouble. But now I'm clean and sober. It's been hard, but when your life gets worse and worse, the only thing left for you to do is quit."

Gaetz always had a soft side. He liked to mingle with Cow Palace fans and was especially good with kids. That's the guy James de Boer knows. A young Canadian filmmaker, de Boer has been trying to make a documentary of Gaetz's life.

"I was really nervous meeting with him the first time, but he's a nice guy," de Boer said. "He knows that if he had gotten his head on straight, he could have played a long time. It's kind of sad."

Then Gaetz dropped off the radar. Wilson and de Boer, among others, didn't know where he was. But he surfaced again this month.

"Heard you were looking for me," Gaetz said on the phone.

He has been working a few months for a rubber recycling company, driving in a truck to collect used car tires. He no longer gets recognized, but his name is remembered.

"When I met the boss, the first thing he said was: 'Hey, you fought Probert,' " Gaetz said.

His voice lifts when told that the occasional "Gaetz" jersey still is seen in the Shark Tank crowd.

"I miss hockey," he said. "But I really miss the fans, and of course San Jose."

He hopes to visit sometime after February 2013 when an old assault charge clears from his record.

"I can't cross the border until then," he said.
-----

I played in Spokane after Link had been there and the stories I heard were unbelievable... in a bad way. Booze really messed him up. I am glad to hear he is sober now and trying to change his life. He was crazy scary back in the day.

Concussions: the untold story (excerpt)

Eric Lindros and other pro hockey players on their depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts

by Cathy Gulli on Thursday, May 19, 2011


Before there was Sidney Crosby, there was Eric Lindros. Both were hockey prodigies as young teenagers. Both were drafted first overall into the NHL. Both won the league MVP in their early 20s, both led Team Canada at the Olympics, and both were hailed as the next Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux. And then, in a fraction of a second, both fell victim to devastating concussions. The toll on Crosby, who has been sidelined since January, remains to be seen. But most fans know that Lindros was never the same after a series of blows to the head—at least eight by the time he retired in 2007. What few know, however—what he’s never talked about publicly before—is the psychological and emotional toll of those concussions.

That a Herculean hockey legend such as Lindros (he is six foot four and 255 lb.) is speaking out with disarming candour about the panic and desolation that he has endured is unprecedented. “You’re in a pretty rough-and-tumble environment with this sport. Talking about these things—you don’t talk about these things,” says Lindros. So while he was playing in the NHL, Lindros mostly kept his game face on. “You got to understand, you want to wake up in the morning and you want to look at yourself and say, ‘I’ve got the perfect engine to accomplish what I need to in this game tonight.’ You are not going to look in the mirror and say, ‘Boy, I’m depressed.’ ”

But there were signs that the concussions had transformed him, both as a man and a hockey player, for the worse. “I was extremely sarcastic. I was real short. I didn’t have patience for people,” says Lindros, 38. That rudeness mutated once he stepped on the ice into fear that the next concussion was just one hit away. “That’s why I played wing my last few years,” he explains of changing positions late in his career. “I hated cutting through the middle. I was avoiding parting the Red Sea.” Off the ice, Lindros developed a paralyzing sense of dread at the very thought of public speaking or of being in a crowd—once routine activities for the sports superstar. “I hated, absolutely hated, that. I’d avoid those scenarios. I didn’t like airports. I didn’t like galas. It would stress me out.”

Although he didn’t realize it at the time, Lindros now believes there is one explanation for the downslide: the concussions. “The anxiety started in the late 1990s, in the midst of them all. I never had it before,” Lindros says. And he thinks that “there’s a real strong correlation.” Even after he quit playing pro hockey and the physical symptoms of concussion (headaches, fatigue) were gone, the anxiety persisted. His weight ballooned; he gained 30 lb. He also realized that the “great deal of frustration” he felt about the politics of hockey was depressing him as well.

To read the rest of this story, pick up the latest issue of Maclean’s at your favourite newsstand.

Hockey’s bare-knuckle anguish

ALLAN MAKI - Calgary - From Saturday's Globe and Mail - Published Friday, May. 20, 2011


He had fought his way up from the minors to the Toronto Maple Leafs only to end up years later in a living-room chair, watching a TV show he couldn't follow. In his hand was a fistful of Xanax and Valium. The physical pain had become so bad that month after month he had gone from taking one pill every four hours to taking at least four every hour.

His children didn't understand. His wife kept saying he needed help. “I was basically out of it,” he recalled. “I was thinking, ‘This is crazy. I'm going to die.'”

But Kurt Walker, the tough guy who broke his hands, separated his shoulders and ruined his back protecting his teammates, didn't die. He got lucky instead. His friends intervened. He went to rehab and reclaimed his life. The pain remains, said Walker, who underwent 17 surgeries, but at 56 he has learned to manage the discomfort that comes from having done the dirtiest job in pro sports – being a hockey heavy, an enforcer, a fighter.

We may love it. Teammates may applaud it. But for the men who stand on skates and throw bare-knuckled head shots at one another, there is no joy. Their usefulness, their livelihood depends on beating another player into submission or not getting beat in return. It's a taxing, exacting way to live, the buildup to that crucial shift, the challenge, the threat of being hurt or embarrassed in front of 17,000 people.

That kind of pressure, Walker said, has been shared by everyone who's ever had to drop the gloves for a living.

“You knew what you had to do and you had to create that anger to fight,” he explained from his home in Murietta, Ga. “I got screwed on pain meds. You'd be surprised how many of us fell into that pain opiate addiction. You fight, you wake up in the morning feeling like you'd been run over by a truck and there's this jar [of pills] and there you go. You take them.

“That's how I coped with everything.”

Talk to enough hockey enforcers, especially those in retirement, and Walker's tale of woe strikes a familiar chord. All too many were fun-loving sorts who became tortured souls. They needed something to get them through the exercise and on to the next fight. For Steve Durbano, Link Gaetz, Brantt Myhres, it was alcohol. For John Kordic and Bob Probert, it was alcohol and drugs. As former reigning heavyweight Georges Laraque put it: “It's the most dangerous job in professional sports. I know a lot of tough guys who had problems with drugs and alcohol from just that pressure.”

No one starts off playing hockey to break faces for a living. Somehow the opportunity finds them, then pushes them to the NHL, where losing a fight could mean being sent to the minors. No more big money, maybe no more job.

Knowing so much depended on roughly 90 seconds of on-ice fury made the emotional demands every bit as alarming as the physical.

“My wife would tell me I was in a different world before games,” said Ryan VandenBussche, the former New York Ranger who ended Nick Kypreos's career in 1997 with a devastating left hand. “I knew there'd be certain teams I'd have to fight against and I'd go into my zone 24 hours prior. It was draining and stressful.”

VandenBussche took his share of beatings, enough to have suffered so many concussions he took to hiding them from his team's trainers. The reason, he explained, was so he could stay in the lineup, otherwise someone else would take his place and perhaps his job. Three years ago, VandenBussche was cleared of assault charges stemming from a fight outside a Southern Ontario bar. After being slammed against a wall, he was tagged with pepper spray and three Taser blasts from police. Informed of VandenBussche's concussion history, the judge ruled his reaction “was not the product of an operating mind.”

“Before all this came out – postconcussion symptoms, [chronic traumatic encephalopathy], protein and after-effects – you had enough in your head worrying about getting knocked out,” said VandenBussche, now a realtor in Ontario. “Now we're hearing how concussions can speed up Alzheimer's and dementia. You've got to have a huge passion for what you do to be able to look past the consequences.”

Probert's death at 45 and Derek Boogaard's at 28 has raised new questions: Has an already hazardous job become even more so given our growing knowledge of brain damage? While Probert died last July of a heart attack, researchers at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy did a posthumous examination and determined he was suffering from a degenerative brain disease.

Boogaard was found dead May 13 in his Minneapolis apartment. On Friday, a medical examiner in Minnesota ruled his death was caused by a mix of alcohol and oxycodone. The Hennepin County medical examiner released Boogaard's cause of death and stated that no further details will be released. His death has been ruled as accidental.

A funeral service for Boogaard will be held at 10 a.m. Central Time Saturday at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police depot in Regina. Boogaard's family members have also donated his brain to BU.

Stu Grimson used to be regaled as The Grim Reaper, a nom de punch he picked up in major junior hockey and could never shake. In one of his early NHL scraps, he suffered a broken orbital bone at the hands of Edmonton Oiler Dave Brown. Right there, Grimson's career could have ended. He not only came back, he played 729 career games with eight teams and totalled 2,113 minutes in penalties, a hefty sum involving many a fight.

A university graduate and a lawyer with a Nashville firm, Grimson is both happy and healthy these days, an exception among most former enforcers. He rationalized his role as a way to earn a living. His conflict now has to do with fighting's place in hockey and mounting evidence it can lead to brain damage.

“Part of me says, ‘How does a sport so bent on cutting down blows to the head still allow two players to throw bare-fisted punches at one another's head? How do you reconcile that?” Grimson asked. “But part of me also says the way the sport is played, if you have someone like me on the bench, the other team knows it could be held accountable. It's a tough issue.”

Grimson, a born-again Christian even as a fighter, insisted it was Probert's death that made him examine his own health.

“Everyone is different, but there is no one who's a better comparable,” Grimson said. “We have the same birth year, the same body type. We played a similar role for the same length of time. I'd be naïve to say something like that doesn't get my attention.”

Laraque was often criticized for not being mean enough when he fought. He pulls no punches in retirement. As the NHL's most feared big man, he hated his job, hated having to live up to a reputation he never wanted. While he fought more than 130 times in 13 seasons, Laraque was quick to find solace in his charity work and religion. That was what it took for him to get past what he did on the ice.

“I always defend the job because I respect the guys who do it,” Laraque explained. “But I never liked it. What I hated the most was that I was promoting violence to the youth. You see kids at [NHL] games and they clench their fists and yell, ‘Kill him' and you're supposed to be a role model. Then they fight in minor hockey and that's my fault. That's how I felt.”

VandenBussche dreaded sitting on the bench waiting for the coach to tap him on the shoulder, the signal it was time for him to go out and make an impact. Grimson described that moment as a jolt, “like going from 0 to 60 mph.”

As for Walker, who took on all comers for an NHL salary of $70,000, all those fights, from the minors to the NHL, exacted a chilling toll. Every three months he needs an epidural to numb the ache in his lower back. His neurosurgeons have told him “what's happened to me is because of the trauma I put my body through playing hockey.”

He said it all came down to that night, sitting in front of the TV with a handful of pain pills, his children watching, his wife pleading. Who cares for the hockey heavyweight and what happens to him once the cheering stops? Walker does. He hopes others feel the same.

Dr. Boucher: The reality of time pressure

Denis Boucher 2011-05-21 The Hockey News

Time is running out fast. If your team doesn’t win the game, you’re done, eliminated. The skills you have mastered, such as passing the puck, shooting at the net, being in the right position at the right time, anticipating the opponent - all those “little things” you normally do with ease are suddenly much more difficult to do. Why? You are experiencing the effects of time pressure.

Every action on the ice takes place in a specific context. These actions or movements exist in relation to the manner in which your brain analyzes the environment. When time pressure builds up, you are still a hockey player skating on the ice trying to win. On the ice, nothing has changed. But in your brain, it’s a completely different world. You’re not only playing to win, you’re playing not to be eliminated and you must win before the end of this seventh game. Things have changed. Your brain feels time pressure. Instead of staying focused on mastering your game, you try to accomplish everything faster because time is slipping away.

Obviously, time passes at the same rate (60 seconds per minute), but in your brain, time goes by much more quickly; you’re facing the relativity of time. Since your brain perceives everything as moving faster, you will move faster. In this case, faster doesn’t mean better, because in this context, you’re losing your coordination, precision and ability to analyze the game. You make more and more mistakes, so pressure increases exponentially. You don’t master anything anymore. You’re moving on the ice and your only purpose is to get rid of the pressure. You don’t do what is necessary to win anymore.

Worst of all, your brain starts to lose its ability to analyze the situation from an overall perspective. It now focuses on insignificant details, which suddenly become the focus of your actions. For some players, negative emotions get so intense that all their attention is focused on trying to forget about them or to make them fade away. Such demands are unsustainable for your brain.

Your body may be on the ice, but your brain isn’t quite there with you. Can you regain “consciousness” when you’re in this kind of trouble? The answer is yes, if you can mentally separate your actions from time pressure. Before the game, a plan must be clearly set, the pace well-defined, the purpose of each action properly explained, etc., and all this in a context where the players set the pace. If you think of doing all this to avoid losing the game at the end of the third period, time pressure will take over your brain and you will lose.

Events on the ice happen fast, you can’t change that, but your brain must stay calm, focused on taking the right actions at the right moment, without the influence of the time running low. Even though victory is won in real time (60 seconds per minute), the subjective experience of time (time pressure) must never take control of your brain.


Dr. Denis Boucher holds a Ph.D. degree in experimental medicine. He manages an exercise physiology laboratory in Quebec and a human performance consulting company in the United States. He has conducted the pre-season on-ice fitness evaluation program for the Philadelphia Flyers. His clinical expertise is in the fields of exercise physiology, nutrition and sport performance. He currently hosts and produces a weekly radio show on XM172 entitled ‘The Little Scientific World of Doc Boucher’ (in French). He will blog for THN.com throughout the season.

Boogaard Is Remembered by His ‘Billet Mom’

By JEFF Z. KLEIN May 21, 2011 NY TIMES


As family and friends gathered for the funeral of Derek Boogaard in Regina, Saskatchewan, on Saturday, Boogaard was remembered in the context of a different kind of family — his last “billet mom,” in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

“I always looked at him as a kid in a big body,” said Doris Sullivan, who put the 6-foot-7 Boogaard up when he was with his last junior team, Medicine Hat Tigers of the Western Hockey League. “He never gave my husband or me any problems. He was always respectful.”

Players in junior hockey room with families in the towns and cities where they play, and Boogaard had such an arrangement when he was with the Tigers as a 19- and 20-year-old in parts of two seasons, 2001-2 and 2002-3.

He stayed in touch with Sullivan, starting the year after he left Medicine Hat and turned pro, when he returned to help Sullivan with the house while she battled cancer, and continued the relationship as he moved on to the N.H.L. with the Minnesota Wild and the Rangers.

“I want to tell these stories about Derek,” she said on Friday, shortly after the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office announced that its toxicology reports showed that Boogaard, who was found dead in his Minneapolis apartment on May 13, had died accidentally after mixing alcohol and the painkiller Oxycodone. “Otherwise, how will people know what kind of person he really was?”

Sullivan, a secretary at Medicine Hat High School, said Boogaard was the fifth or sixth of the roughly 25 young hockey or baseball players who have roomed in her house.

“He used to hang out in the house when Sean Connors lived here,” Sullivan said, referring to a Medicine Hat goalie who billeted with her. “They were always goofing around, but good things, nothing bad. There was a lady who roomed here who liked to bake cookies. Derek and Sean always found an excuse to come up from the basement and walk through the kitchen, and there’d always be a couple of cookies missing. They thought it was the funniest thing.

“Finally, one day, Derek came up to me and said: ‘Doris, I want to move into your place. I have to.’”

When Derek was 16, he was traded from the Regina Pats, where his family lived, to Prince George, British Columbia, and had trouble adjusting to the big change. He lived with four different billet families in one season in Prince George and was also the butt of jokes from teammates. But that was a couple of seasons in the past by the time he found Doris Sullivan’s home.

“When he moved here he’d had a few different billets,” Sullivan said. “But that can happen, and we never had any problems from Derek. He was a good kid.”

Sullivan remembered one night when Boogaard and a couple of his Tigers teammates came home after a game, and Boogaard leaned against the refrigerator. “He rested his arm on top of the refrigerator,” she said. “On top — that’s how big he was.”

But, she said, “he fit in — the only thing was that his clothes were bigger.” Boogaard also liked to cook. “He was especially good at breakfast,” Sullivan said. “He loved to cook, and not just making it taste good, but even the presentation. It got so I lost my job making breakfast — it became Derek’s thing to do.”

Boogaard had two coaches with Medicine Hat. The second, Willie Desjardins, is now an assistant with the Dallas Stars.

Desjardins remembered Boogaard as “a real quality person” during his last season in junior.

“He didn’t fight much when he was with me — he was so big that nobody wanted to fight him,” Desjardins said — and indeed, Boogaard’s 14 fights that season were second to the 40 engaged in by another Tiger, Ryan Olynyk.

“The thing that struck me was he was a really good person,” Desjardins said of Boogaard. “When things went bad, he didn’t say anything bad. He appreciated the things that were given to him.”

Sullivan remembered a day early in Boogaard’s second season with Medicine Hat, when “he came home from the rink looking so forlorn.” She asked him what was wrong, and he replied, “Well, I can’t go back to the rink for a while,” she said.

Boogaard told Sullivan that he had run into a 16-year-old rookie, who was badly injured on the play. “’Boogie, you don’t have to come back to training camp for a while,’ he said they told him,” Sullivan said. “He said it was just like when he was in kindergarten: ‘Derek, you can’t play with the little kids.’”

Boogaard was asked not to return to the Rangers late last season after recovering from a concussion, according to Georges Laraque, Boogaard’s friend. Laraque said in a radio interview last week that Boogaard told him that the Rangers had medically cleared Boogaard to return to play, but asked him to stay away until training camp next year because there was no roster spot for him. Laraque said that left Boogaard feeling “a bit down.”

But Sullivan also remembered a magical moment for Boogaard. While he was away on a road trip with the Tigers, a Minnesota scout arrived and asked Sullivan in-depth questions about Boogaard’s character at home. Sullivan answered that Boogaard was a person of good character.

“I called Derek and told him while he was driving back from a game in Calgary that a scout from the Minnesota Wild was asking about him. ‘What did you tell him?’ Derek asked me — he was nervous. I told him I said only good things. ‘Thank you, Doris,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’”

Sullivan said that after leaving Medicine Hat and spending a year in the minor pros, Boogaard called to ask if he and a girlfriend could stay while he worked out with the Tigers for a few days at training camp. He came to the house to speak with Sullivan and her husband, and Sullivan explained that she had to undergo surgery for cancer in a few days.

“You’re welcome to stay, but could you do me a favor? I asked him,” Sullivan said. “‘What’s that?’ Derek said, and stood up straight. ‘Cook for the boys,’ I said, meaning the other billets living here.

“And he smiled and said, ‘I can do that for you.’ A few days later, I came home from the hospital, and there he was, serving pregame dinner to the boys. Barbecue steak and salad.”

Sullivan said she has spoken to Boogaard’s mother in the days since Boogaard died, and invited her to come to Medicine Hat sometime after the funeral so she could tell her the things she remembered about Derek.

“I said, ‘Joanne, those stories will make you so proud of Derek.’ She said, ‘I’m already so proud of Derek.’”

Sullivan remembered her last phone conversation with Boogaard, earlier this year. Sullivan confessed to him that with a new baseball team in Medicine Hat, she wasn’t sure she wanted to take in billets anymore. “‘I think I’ve had the best ones already,’ I told him, and said I didn’t want to go down to talk to the team.

“But Derek said, ‘Oh no — I think you should really go, Doris,’” Sullivan said.

“And he convinced me to talk to the team and to keep taking in billets, and I’m still doing it today. Because of Derek.”

Concussed, but using his head

On Second Thought
May 22, 2011 By Kevin Paul Dupont Boston Globe



Adam Micheletti’s final day playing hockey wasn’t nearly as he envisioned it. He was 18 years old, with a father who once played in the National Hockey League, and he was intent on following his hockey dream until … well, until it was over, until he was convinced there wasn’t a team somewhere in the world willing to give him a sweater and put his name on its roster.

“Absolutely, the whole dream,’’ Micheletti recalled. “You know, college hockey, the NHL, the Stanley Cup … hey, the typical dream when you’re growing up, right?’’

But as is so often the case with contact sports, the dream came with pain and injury, and eventually worry, concern that one day dreaming too big could mean living too little. Not an easy thing for a high schooler to grasp, and sometimes equally difficult, even anguishing, for a parent to put in perspective.

“From the day they’re born, we tell them, ‘Hey, dream big, you can get there!’ ’’ said Adam’s dad, ex-NHLer Joe Micheletti, today one of TV’s finest hockey commentators, his work seen regularly on the MSG Network, NBC, and Versus. “But it was going to a bad place for Adam. It was obvious he had to stop.

“I know he struggled with it. I struggled with it. My wife struggled with it, although, when I’d begin to waffle a little, Kathy would say, ‘Joe, will you stop? Will you please just stop? We’re saving his life, Joe, we’re saving his life!’ ’’

In the span of some 18 months, the 5-foot-6-inch Micheletti, while playing for a Long Island junior team, suffered three concussions, the final one delivered while playing in Boston in November 2002. As with the previous concussions, he didn’t think much of the hit, until he returned to the dressing room after the game and lost peripheral vision in his right eye.

“That was scary,’’ said Micheletti, whose vision did not return in full until a trip that night to a hospital emergency room. “Before, it had just been headaches, and they’d go away. But when you start to have problems with your vision, it kind of jumps up at you.’’

Concussions have been a hot topic in sports, especially hockey and football, in recent years. Neurologists frequently say the understanding of concussions continues to evolve. To a degree, they remain a mystery, making it difficult for athletes to cope with, to assess their ability to play.

With the Bruins alone, we’ve seen the struggles endured by Patrice Bergeron and Marc Savard, each a victim of multiple concussions.

For 30 or so days after Micheletti’s last concussion in 2002, his parents went about finding out all they could about concussions and the risks related to their only son’s desire to keep playing hockey.

Joe was at his son’s side when a neurologist informed Adam that continuing to play was not prudent. But before he could offer his own advice, Joe talked to more doctors, and to a few high-profile ex-NHLers, including star forwards Pat LaFontaine and Eric Lindros, who eventually had to retire because of concussions. He talked to trainers and coaches. He wanted to be certain.

“Part of it was Adam’s size, being only 5 feet 6 and 160 pounds,’’ said the senior Micheletti. “And when I say that, I mean his size and the gutsy way he played center, always going to the tough areas. He would get right in there, get after it.

“He played like he thought he was 6 feet 4, 220 pounds. And when you play like that, it means getting hit. And the way kids play it, they try to kill each other out there. He’d go right at them and they’d go at his head.’’

Over the course of a month or so, dad’s due diligence made the conclusion obvious.

“We had to tell him, ‘Adam, it’s over,’ ’’ said Joe, those words still difficult for him to repeat. “I still think about it. Not as much as I did at first, but it still tugs at me.

“No way do you want to take that away from your kid. Not when they love it, they dedicate themselves to it, when they’ve got all their hopes and dreams wrapped up in it.’’

“Parents have to tell their kids no all the time, but boy, that was hard.’’

Less than a year later, Micheletti was a freshman at Boston College, where he played pickup hockey and golfed more than he did before. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business in 2007. On July 16, he will marry Rachel Orlowski, another BC ’07 alum, from Dartmouth. They will live in Dubuque, Iowa, where Adam is director of hockey and business operations for the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the US Hockey League.

The dream that Micheletti was forced to give up at 18 has been reshaped. He hopes one day to be general manager of an NHL team.

“It was strange; initially, I was OK when my parents told me I had to give up hockey,’’ said Adam. “Losing my vision like that scared me, and I knew, deep down, it was the right decision to stop.

“Then some time went by, and it was those Tuesday and Thursday nights — nights we would normally travel for games — and I’d be doing nothing. I kind of got the itch back a little bit. That was after maybe 3-6 months, and I talked to my dad about maybe trying again, but we both decided it just didn’t make sense.’’

Thankfully, said Adam, he has experienced none of the devilish post-concussion symptoms that often come with brain injuries. He figures he’s a lucky guy in many ways. Had he kept playing hockey, he might never have gone to BC and never met Rachel.

Kids of all ages, and too many adults, face the kind of decision Micheletti and his parents faced eight years ago. What’s the advice of a son who had to accept the parental advice he really didn’t want to hear?

“I’d tell kids to take a step back,’’ said Adam. “Take a step back and look at everything — look at everything and think about their future. Playing hockey is great. I know. I loved it. But you know, it’s not the be-all and end-all.’’

So what is the be-all and end-all when you’ve been 18, singularly focused on a sport and a dream, only to be told that’s just not the way your life is meant to be?

“I’d say the be-all and end-all is just living,’’ said Adam Micheletti. “Just living a happy, healthy life.’’

Kevin Paul Dupont’s “On Second Thought’’ appears on Page 2 of the Sunday Globe Sports section. He can be reached at dupont@globe.com.

Generation gap - Memorial Cup
This year's coaches compare today's tournament versus the ones they played in three decades ago.

Patrick King TSN May 23, 2011




MISSISSAUGA, Ont. -- From bench-clearing brawls, to allegations of game-throwing, to hitch-hiking late at night along Highway 17, the MasterCard Memorial Cup has truly come a long way.

Long before Mark Reeds and Gerard Gallant fought at centre ice during their National Hockey League careers, the two bench bosses from Owen Sound and Saint John paved the road in tournament history for the many players who now play for them. But, boys being boys, these teenaged hockey players would rather poke fun at their mentors rather than reliving their glory.

"They just say, ‘did the goalies wear pads back then?’" said Gallant, who twice played for the MasterCard Memorial Cup in 1982 and 1983.

"The kids today -- they don’t want to listen to stories about old days," added Reeds, a three-year tournament veteran with the Peterborough Petes from 1978 through 1980. "They’re not interested in that. They like some stories, but for the most part, it’s a different generation."

Stories like the one which pitted the two head coaches from Monday’s MasterCard Memorial Cup game in a fight while playing in the NHL?

"Yeah, they always like stuff like that," Reeds said. "They enjoyed that one."

Darn kids.

While they may not be interested in reliving their head coach’s glory days as a player, the history from those tournaments some 30 years ago helped shape the tournament to how we know it today. Reeds and Gallant combined to play in five national championships during a period of great influence in the game, and in particular, the MasterCard Memorial Cup.

Reeds’ second trip to the national championship is still considered one of the best tournaments ever played. The Peterborough Petes, the only of the three teams in the tournament not to have set a league record for points in the 1978-79 season, wound up upsetting the Brandon Wheat Kings, whose 125 points that season still stands as the Canadian Hockey League record, in overtime of the final.

After losing in the final the year before to the New Westminster Bruins, Reeds recalls his head coach, Gary Green, organizing a team meeting the night prior to the 1979 final.

"We felt we were maybe a little too tense the year before and (Green) brought us in, we sat around and shot the breeze a little bit," Reeds said. "Obviously that was a huge thrill winning the Memorial Cup -- the town of Peterborough and just being involved in it was a great experience."

One of the stories that stood the test of time from the 1979 tournament was the complete team brawl in warm-up between the other two teams, the Wheat Kings and the Trois-Rivières Draveurs.

Such things were commonplace in those days. Revenge was a dish served cold with a side order of wood. Three years later, Gallant actually sparked a battle royale when he sought retribution for what he must have felt was a dirty hit from Kitchener’s Mike Eagles.

As Gallant, a member of the Sherbrooke Castors in 1982, remembers it, Eagles jabbed him in the back of the legs while Gallant was going in on a forecheck. Gallant spilled into the boards and cut his lip in the process. Gallant took matters into his own hands a few shifts later with a description that sounds eerily-similar to the Marty McSorley-Donald Brashear incident from the year 2000.

"Mike Eagles was breaking out and swinging up the boards and I sort of slapped him in the face with the stick and cut his face and he went down," says Gallant. "Me and Mike are pretty good friends, and it was a long time ago -- but then from that time on the bench-clearing brawl started.

"I must have got a five-minute major – had to, because I fought three times in the bench-clearing brawl. It was more wrestling than anything else, but it was exhausting."

Gallant wasn’t able to replicate Reeds’ success in the final. The Castors wound up losing 7-4 to Eagles’ Rangers.

"Sherbrooke was an outstanding team that lost in the final," Gallant remembers. "We could have won just as easily as we lost."

Those are the breaks when playing a one-game final. Reeds agreed his Petes were probably more suited to win the 1978 and 1980 MasterCard Memorial Cups than they were the one time they did win in 1979. All three years the Petes played in the final, but as Reeds indicated, all bets are off once the puck drops.

"That’s the way the tournament works," he said. "We thought we could beat Cornwall (in the 1980 final) and I remember Scotty Arniel or someone saying, ‘we should have been able to win, but we didn’t.’ The bottom line is we didn’t, so how could you say they didn’t deserve to win?"

Reeds’ first trip to the Memorial Cup left him with more than just playing experience. Prior to 1983, the tournament only had three teams with a host city, but no host team guaranteed entry. The 1978 tournament was held in Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., another common theme to have dual host sites in those days.

The problem between alternating cities was the travel that was involved. Late one night while traveling between the Soo and Sudbury, the Petes’ bus broke down on the highway. As Reeds recalls it, vans were sent to pick up the stranded players, but not all of them waited. In a move that would send a chill down every parent’s back in today’s society, many of the teenaged players hitched rides.

"Just a different era," the player-turned-coach said. "Another part of the game and another story to tell."

One of many stories Reeds could share with his players -- if they were interested.

As inconceivable as it may be to consider the notion a team would lose a game on purpose in this tournament, such allegations followed Reeds’ final two trips. A Peterborough win in their final round robin game against Brandon in 1979 would have eliminated the Wheat Kings and set a final between the Petes and Trois-Rivières. The Petes lost -- eliminating the Draveurs -- then beat the injury-depleted Wheat Kings in overtime in the final.

A year later, the Petes were again blamed for throwing their final round robin game when it was already determined they would play in the final. The tournament was partially hosted in Regina, and the hometown Pats were eliminated when Peterborough lost to Cornwall in the round robin. Fans showered the Petes players with coins, popcorn, pop containers and insults.

Peterborough wound up losing the final in overtime to Cornwall, and moments after the game was decided Petes players were hit by eggs from the angry Regina faithful.

The subject still seems a sore one for Reeds even now 31 years later, but he has a simple solution for anyone still pointing fingers at that Peterborough team.

"People can say what they want, but at the end of the day you’re here to compete and win," he said. "Win your games and you didn’t have to worry about it. Do your own work."

A rule change was put in the following year where, if a team had advanced to the final after four games, the other two would play twice in a total-goal series.

Then in Gallant’s second Memorial Cup in 1983, two years after the rule was put in, the tournament expanded to four teams with a host city team earning an automatic entry. But unlike the 1982 Castors, the 1983 Verdun Juniors, Gallant’s new team, were not expected to succeed. Aside from a future superstar by the name of Pat LaFontaine, the Juniors were ill-equipped to compete for the championship.

"We didn’t have a whole lot of depth," Gallant explained. "We weren’t going to win that tournament, but we had a lot of fun with it."

And while there were far fewer fights in 1983, the times were still clearly much different then compared to now.

"The game was definitely different," Reeds said. "The game has come a long way and as far as players. They’re bigger, stronger, faster -- you can’t compare the athletes."

Nor can you compare the rules towards fighting since bench-clearing brawls now only have a place in history.

"The intimidation factor and I mean, you look at Slapshot the movie -- it wasn’t far from it -- some of the antics that went on in the WHA," Reeds said.

If one of his players finds himself in a similar position to Gallant in 1982, where a stick jab precipitated a brawl, the coach would offer differing advice than his own actions: "Stay disciplined," he said. "We’re a disciplined team and we try to play disciplined."

"Obviously, the changes I think have been good for the game," Reeds said.

"It’s good that it is (evolving)," Gallant concurred. "We get pampered pretty good here and the kids get taken care of real well so it’s a lot of fun."

Yes, the MasterCard Memorial Cup has certainly evolved.

Today’s generation doesn’t know what its missing.

Hockey enforcers paying horrible price

gdrinnan.blogspot.com May 26, 2011



By now it is rather apparent that Derek Boogaard, the New York Rangers’ enforcer, was a troubled young man.

Boogaard was 28 years of age when his body was discovered in his Minneapolis apartment on May 13 at 6:30 pm. One season into a four-year, US$6.5-million contract with the New York Rangers, Boogaard hadn’t played since suffering a concussion in a fight during a game on Dec. 9.

It was the 66th and final bout of his NHL career.

According to the Hennepin County Medical Examiners’ Office, which issued its report on Friday, “Cause of death is mixed alcohol and oxycodone toxicity.”

Oxycodone is used to treat moderate to severe pain. It is a narcotic pain reliever and is highly addictive. It has, in fact, been compared to heroin; in some corners, it is referred to as Hillbilly Heroin. It is evil.

What was especially chilling, however, was one sentence in an ensuing statement from Boogaard’s family.

“After repeated courageous attempts at rehabilitation and with the full support of the New York Rangers, the NHLPA, and the NHL,” the statement read, “Derek had been showing tremendous improvement but was ultimately unable to beat this opponent.”

Boogaard, the 6-foot-7, 270-pounder who had laid out many an opposing player, lost his last fight.

On the heels of that statement came a story by Allan Maki in The Globe and Mail in which Kurt Walker, another former NHL enforcer, talked of gobbling pain killers — especially Xanax and Valium — like Christmas candy. It took an intervention and rehab to save Walker.

Boogaard wasn’t so fortunate.

When the Rangers sent Boogaard home in March, it was reported that they wanted him to begin working on his conditioning for next season. However, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported Sunday that “management essentially staged an intervention with Boogaard at the club's practice rink in late March that resulted in (his) re-entry into the NHL/NHLPA Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program.”

And we now know how that turned out.

What we don’t know is how many concussions Boogaard suffered during a hockey career that, according to hockeyfights.com, included 184 bouts since the fall of 1999, or how much those fights impacted Boogaard’s abbreviated life.

But the fact that he was using Oxycodone is frightening, as is the story that Walker told Maki.

It turns out that a lot of this will be familiar to medical professionals working with patients who are trying to deal with chronic pain.
One such professional, who has been working in the acute side of a B.C. hospital while following the concussions-in-hockey debate, wrote via email:

“I am seeing patients whose lives have been ruined by chronic pain treated with narcotics and then having to deal with the impact of addictions. Many of them having emotional or cognitive issues going into it. Lots of post-traumatic stress and abuse and psychiatric diagnoses.”

In other words, people like Derek Boogaard and Kurt Walker are hardly alone out there. The question, however, is how many former and present-day hockey players are fighting this same battle?

The evidence proving concussions are a horrible hockey problem now is so one-sided as to be laughable. (See the latest issue of Macleans or visit macleans.ca for even more evidence, including the case of Eric Lindros, who had what should have been a hall-of-fame career short-circuited by concussions. In this same story, former WHLer Kevin Kaminski explains how he believes post-concussion syndrome cost him his marriage.)

Boogaard, meanwhile, was working on a book — Meet the Boogey Man: Fighting My Way to the Top — with author Ross Bernstein. Appearing on Puck Daddy Radio last week, Bernstein told of being on a golf course one day last summer when Boogaard called him.

“I need you to come get me,” Boogaard told Bernstein, who promptly asked: “Well, where are you?”

Boogaard’s response was: “I don’t know.”

Devin Wilson, a former teammate of Boogaard’s with the Prince George Cougars, was in the process of purchasing a New York condo with his buddy. Thus, Wilson was able to watch Boogaard as he attempted to deal with his latest concussion.

"It was frustrating because we couldn't go out without his head spinning again,” Wilson told Jason Peters of the Prince George Citizen. “One thing that nobody knows is that riding in cabs through New York, he would just start spinning. He'd have his hands on his head and he'd say, 'I need to get out right now' and we'd end up walking like 60 blocks home. I knew (the concussion) was bad.”

Boogaard’s family has turned his brain over to Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. If, as anticipated, Boogaard’s brain shows signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) it will mean that the veritable flood of evidence has moved closer to the WHL’s doorstep.

At the time of his death, Boogaard was only eight years removed from having played in the WHL, where he was involved in 70 fights in 172 regular-season games.

All of this should be enough to make any parent wonder about sending a child off to play in a league that outlaws neither fighting nor headshots.

Stu Grimson, a former WHL/NHL enforcer who practises law in Nashville and also works as an analyst on Predators’ broadcasts, admitted to Maki that recent developments have him feeling conflicted.

“Part of me says, ‘How does a sport so bent on cutting down blows to the head still allow two players to throw bare-fisted punches at one another's head?’ How do you reconcile that?” Grimson said. “But part of me also says the way the sport is played, if you have someone like me on the bench, the other team knows it could be held accountable. It's a tough issue.”

There is no denying that it is a tough issue.

But is it any tougher than what Boogaard went through? Or what Kurt Walker and who knows how many others are going through?

Symptoms stopped Wheat Kings' Liston

By: John MacNeil Brandon Sun 25/05/2011



Back home for the off-season, Brandon Wheat Kings goaltender Liam Liston graduated from St. Albert Catholic High School in Alberta last weekend, right on schedule.

His first season in the Western Hockey League, however, ended prematurely when he was sidelined with a concussion midway through Brandon's playoff series against the Medicine Hat Tigers.

"It was the first concussion I ever had," said Liston, who turned 18 in April. "It's something that I don't really ever want to have to experience again. I just don't wish that on anybody. It's not a fun thing to go through -- the way you feel -- and hopefully I won't have to deal with it again.

"I think it's a little more prevalent with (skaters) -- defencemen and forwards -- than it is with goalies, with the body contact obviously. So I don't think it should be a problem (for me) in the years to come."

Liston's setback didn't even happen during a game.

"Just in practice, actually, between Games 3 and 4, I took a bit of a shot off the head," he said. "It kind of went from there and it developed. I took my (concussion) test and realized that it was a little more serious than we originally thought.

"It wasn't anything that was going to be career-threatening or anything like that. But at the same time, what people don't realize is concussion is a brain injury and I don't think the brain is ever something you want to take lightly when something has happened to it."

Liston and the Wheat Kings followed the WHL protocol for players believed to be suffering from concussion symptoms. Procedures are in place to detect head injuries and stipulate how long players must sit out before they're deemed healthy enough to return to action.

"In the National Hockey League, they talk about it now, too, where guys have to go visit the 'quiet room' and get checked out by a doctor," Liston said while watching the Stanley Cup playoffs on TV. "For us (in the WHL), we do a computer test and they compare it to your baseline tests from the start of the year when you're healthy and it gets shipped off to a specialist in the area and he compares them and lets them know which areas of the test you failed and what that means. It doesn't take him very long to figure out whether you're healthy or not.

"I was done for the rest of the series. We never really even put a timeline on (a possible return). I was just starting to get to that point when the series ended, so it was unfortunate."

Liston sat out the final three games of Brandon's 4-2 series loss to Medicine Hat. Dizziness and an aversion to light and noise were his most pronounced concussion symptoms.

"I slept all the time while I was on the road with the guys," he said. "In Winnipeg and stuff, I couldn't stop sleeping and had trouble walking. I watched the games from up in the press box, with the lights turned off, because that was about as far away from all the noise that I could get and it was the dimmest place I could watch from."

The well-spoken Liston has an analytical mind, but the NHL draft prospect doesn't want to get too comfortable in the press box. In the heat of the playoffs, though, that vantage point provided him with a calming environment away from the hustle and bustle at ice level.

"It's not fun and you don't want to bring the mood on the team down, so you try to stay away from the guys as much as you can," he said. "But I think with any injury, you start to feel like you should be out there and it's out of your control and you start getting frustrated with different doctors and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, they have your best interests in mind and they were just trying to help."

Ironically, his concussion came during the same series that the Tigers lost their St. Albert goalie, Edmonton Oilers draft choice Tyler Bunz, with the same ailment.

"For all the hype that there was before the series about us getting to play against each other -- especially here back home, I know lots of people were excited about it -- I guess it didn't really work out," Liston said of his friend Bunz. "It was just odd that the same thing was a problem for both of us."

"Obviously, Tyler recovered in time to have a good run with the Tigers. I know that neither of us would wish that (pain) on the other again. We laugh about it now, but at the time, it wasn't very much fun."

Goalies take shots in multiple forms, but Liston believes they're relatively well-protected, not only with advanced equipment.

"With the rules in place the way they are now, you're seeing a lot of cases in the playoffs this year where guys are getting called for goalie interference and stuff like that," he said. "I know that the referees in the Western Hockey League put a premium on protecting all the guys that play net. It's a good thing, because there can be a lot of jostling that goes on in front of you and sometimes you can get bumped accidentally. But they do a pretty good job of taking care of us, so that's great."

Liston rested after returning home this spring, but he's now working out daily in training for next season.

"You try not to do much physical activity for the first couple of weeks after it, just because you don't want to bring back any symptoms, at all," he said. "You've got to bring it along slowly. You need to rest."


Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition May 25, 2011

Dangerous hit derailed Mills' season

By: John MacNeil Brandon Sun 26/05/2011


Much like two of his favourite NHL players -- Ryan Kesler and Ryan Getzlaf -- Brandon bantam Jace Mills prefers to play hockey physically.

"I hit, I hit, I like hitting," said a smiling Mills, who turned 14 this week.

"I wasn't a hitter my first year of peewee, and then my second year, I got used to it. I remember, my friend ... made a big hit and I was, like, 'I want to make a big hit. I want to do that.' I went and hit a kid and it felt good when I put him to the ice. I've been doing it since then."

Now going into his second year of bantam -- and fourth season of bodychecking -- Mills was on the receiving end of a bone-crunching hit this winter that left him with a concussion and derailed his season with Brandon's minor bantam team, the A&W Wheat Kings.

Even longtime hockey parents at the game said they hadn't previously witnessed such a severe check. It sent Mills head-first into the boards, said his mother Kim, who watched frantically from the sidelines during that mid-February game in Winnipeg.

"It was awful," she said. "We all thought there was no way Jace was going to get up. We thought, a broken neck maybe, or a stretcher (would be needed) or something. It was just a general gasp.

"It was one of those hits that no one wants to see happen. It was just an unfortunate timing with the space between (Jace and) the boards and the speed of the boy that was throwing the hit."

The Winnipeg Warriors' player who hit Mills received a game misconduct and an additional one-game suspension, Kim Mills said. "He had just returned from serving a suspension."

As much as Jace likes to throw checks, his parents say he does so cleanly.

"Jace hits a lot, but he's never been called for a hit from behind," said his father Dave. "You can be physical and aggressive and know when to stop."

Jace partly credits his football background for his knowledge of how to make a clean check on the ice.

"It's kind of simple," he said. "I think I learned from football, like, the proper contact. You don't rock someone from behind. You've got to go right at them. If it's a hit from behind, I don't like to be mean. Your team wouldn't like that, even, if you hit a kid from behind and got kicked out of the game."

Jace, at 5-foot-7 and 170 pounds, is a power forward who also plays defence, as he was during the game in which he was injured.

"It was a D-to-D pass in the neutral zone and the puck was ahead of me, so I tried to go get it and then I got hit," he said.

"When I hit the ground, it went all fuzzy sort of and it went black for a second. But I can't remember any pain. I got up and my coach was telling me to lay down, because he thought something was really wrong."

Jace, however, was able to leave the ice with minimal assistance and he stayed on the bench and in the game. But, on his next shift, he collided with a teammate and slammed into a goalpost.

"I ran into the post, and then I just skated off and sat in the dressing room until the end of the game," he said. "I just felt terrible. I didn't get sick, but I felt sick, for sure. I just wanted to go to sleep, pretty much, because my head was pounding."

Jace's doctor is the father of one of his teammates with the Bantam A Wheat Kings, so he was at the game and examined Jace in the dressing room and instructed him not to return to action that weekend. They scheduled a doctor's appoint-ment for Monday, two days after the hit.

"At that time, (the doctor) said, 'Don't prepare to play or don't plan to play for a while, because you're not going to,'" Kim said. "So that's what started my research, because Jace kept saying, 'My headache is gone. I feel good enough to play.' But it was quite the opposite."

Jace was not only off the ice, but he experienced concussion symptoms at home and in school.

"When I was reading, the words would sort of not come together," said the Grade 8 student. "Math was the worst because you're trying to focus and figure out the questions, but you can't. And then you get headaches because, I guess you could say, you're thinking too hard."

His parents were thinking, too, wondering what it would take for their son to regain his health. Kim began to research concussions and discovered that Jace's participation in math class might have been counter-productive to his recovery.

"It was, absolutely," she said in hindsight. "I was adamant that he had to go to school. You think you're a good parent and doing the right thing by saying, 'Go to school. You can't miss school. Come on.' I shouldn't have done that.

"But his school was good about it. We had to phone and say, 'He's got a headache, he's got a concussion and there's no way he can be active in phys ed.' The school was understanding. But they hadn't heard, either, that math was a factor (triggering concussion stress). Who knows? You've got to try to find that balance between school and sports and manage that."

At home, too, concussion symptoms caused discomfort for Jace.

"Even video games and TV, that kind of stuff early on was difficult," Kim said. "Sitting in a black room was the best (remedy) for the early onset."

At the same time, Jace was keen to return to the ice. After all, he's an active kid whose hobbies include snowboarding, skateboarding, biking and multiple school sports.

He attempted a hockey comeback when the local Directors Cup team began practising for the provincial development tournament for 1997-born players. He had been symptom-free for two weeks, but a recurrence of his headaches forced Jace to miss two big events that wrapped up the Wheat Kings' season -- the Tournament of Champions in Brandon and the provincial championship in The Pas.

"It sucked," he said succinctly.

Eventually, he was able to practise and play with the Directors Cup team in late March to end a trying season on a positive note.

"With those good coaches, I learned more in those six weeks than I probably did in my whole season," Jace said. "And I improved a lot over that time, too."

As he returned to the ice, there were a few anxious moments for his parents.

"The first game back was hard to watch, just every hit," Kim said. "But by the second game, we were on stride. It was like it had never happened. He had forgotten about it." "I hit, I hit, I like hitting," said a smiling Mills, who turned 14 this week.

"I wasn't a hitter my first year of peewee, and then my second year, I got used to it. I remember, my friend ... made a big hit and I was, like, 'I want to make a big hit. I want to do that.' I went and hit a kid and it felt good when I put him to the ice. I've been doing it since then."

Now going into his second year of bantam -- and fourth season of bodychecking -- Mills was on the receiving end of a bone-crunching hit this winter that left him with a concussion and derailed his season with Brandon's minor bantam team, the A&W Wheat Kings.

Even longtime hockey parents at the game said they hadn't previously witnessed such a severe check. It sent Mills head-first into the boards, said his mother Kim, who watched frantically from the sidelines during that mid-February game in Winnipeg.

"It was awful," she said. "We all thought there was no way Jace was going to get up. We thought, a broken neck maybe, or a stretcher (would be needed) or something. It was just a general gasp.

"It was one of those hits that no one wants to see happen. It was just an unfortunate timing with the space between (Jace and) the boards and the speed of the boy that was throwing the hit."

The Winnipeg Warriors' player who hit Mills received a game misconduct and an additional one-game suspension, Kim Mills said. "He had just returned from serving a suspension."

As much as Jace likes to throw checks, his parents say he does so cleanly.

"Jace hits a lot, but he's never been called for a hit from behind," said his father Dave. "You can be physical and aggressive and know when to stop."

Jace partly credits his football background for his knowledge of how to make a clean check on the ice.

"It's kind of simple," he said. "I think I learned from football, like, the proper contact. You don't rock someone from behind. You've got to go right at them. If it's a hit from behind, I don't like to be mean. Your team wouldn't like that, even, if you hit a kid from behind and got kicked out of the game."

Jace, at 5-foot-7 and 170 pounds, is a power forward who also plays defence, as he was during the game in which he was injured.

"It was a D-to-D pass in the neutral zone and the puck was ahead of me, so I tried to go get it and then I got hit," he said.

"When I hit the ground, it went all fuzzy sort of and it went black for a second. But I can't remember any pain. I got up and my coach was telling me to lay down, because he thought something was really wrong."

Jace, however, was able to leave the ice with minimal assistance and he stayed on the bench and in the game. But, on his next shift, he collided with a teammate and slammed into a goalpost.

"I ran into the post, and then I just skated off and sat in the dressing room until the end of the game," he said. "I just felt terrible. I didn't get sick, but I felt sick, for sure. I just wanted to go to sleep, pretty much, because my head was pounding."

Jace's doctor is the father of one of his teammates with the Bantam A Wheat Kings, so he was at the game and examined Jace in the dressing room and instructed him not to return to action that weekend. They scheduled a doctor's appoint-ment for Monday, two days after the hit.

"At that time, (the doctor) said, 'Don't prepare to play or don't plan to play for a while, because you're not going to,'" Kim said. "So that's what started my research, because Jace kept saying, 'My headache is gone. I feel good enough to play.' But it was quite the opposite."

Jace was not only off the ice, but he experienced concussion symptoms at home and in school.

"When I was reading, the words would sort of not come together," said the Grade 8 student. "Math was the worst because you're trying to focus and figure out the questions, but you can't. And then you get headaches because, I guess you could say, you're thinking too hard."

His parents were thinking, too, wondering what it would take for their son to regain his health. Kim began to research concussions and discovered that Jace's participation in math class might have been counter-productive to his recovery.

"It was, absolutely," she said in hindsight. "I was adamant that he had to go to school. You think you're a good parent and doing the right thing by saying, 'Go to school. You can't miss school. Come on.' I shouldn't have done that.

"But his school was good about it. We had to phone and say, 'He's got a headache, he's got a concussion and there's no way he can be active in phys ed.' The school was understanding. But they hadn't heard, either, that math was a factor (triggering concussion stress). Who knows? You've got to try to find that balance between school and sports and manage that."

At home, too, concussion symptoms caused discomfort for Jace.

"Even video games and TV, that kind of stuff early on was difficult," Kim said. "Sitting in a black room was the best (remedy) for the early onset."

At the same time, Jace was keen to return to the ice. After all, he's an active kid whose hobbies include snowboarding, skateboarding, biking and multiple school sports.

He attempted a hockey comeback when the local Directors Cup team began practising for the provincial development tournament for 1997-born players. He had been symptom-free for two weeks, but a recurrence of his headaches forced Jace to miss two big events that wrapped up the Wheat Kings' season -- the Tournament of Champions in Brandon and the provincial championship in The Pas.

"It sucked," he said succinctly.

Eventually, he was able to practise and play with the Directors Cup team in late March to end a trying season on a positive note.

"With those good coaches, I learned more in those six weeks than I probably did in my whole season," Jace said. "And I improved a lot over that time, too."

As he returned to the ice, there were a few anxious moments for his parents.

"The first game back was hard to watch, just every hit," Kim said. "But by the second game, we were on stride. It was like it had never happened. He had forgotten about it."


Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition May 26, 2011

Star investigation: What really killed NHL's Bill Masterton

Rob Cribb & Randy Starkman Toronto Star Staff Reporters Sat May 28 2011


It’s the most gruesome distinction in hockey: Only one player has ever died from injuries directly suffered in an NHL game.

When Bill Masterton’s limp body collapsed to the ice on Jan. 15, 1968, the Minnesota North Stars centre appeared to be the victim of an innocuous hit. Thirty hours later, he was dead in hospital.

Today his story is nearly forgotten, but for an annual NHL award that bears his name. It honours perseverance and dedication to hockey.

The irony is that perseverance probably killed Bill Masterton.

What happened in the days leading up to that fatal moment in Minneapolis, when Masterton played his 38th and final NHL game, has been largely a mystery.

But a Star investigation has uncovered evidence that an earlier, untreated concussion was likely responsible for Masterton’s death at the age of 29.

That injury was compounded by the age-old hockey code that preaches shake-it-off-and-get-back-out-there resilience in the face of pain, serious injury, even brain trauma.

“I’ve never said this to anyone before,” said Wren Blair, Masterton’s coach and general manager, now 85. “I’ve never thought that it had anything to do with that hit. I think he had a (pre-existing) cerebral brain hemorrhage.”

Those closest to Masterton concur he was suffering from a brain injury before he stepped on to the ice that night, as does a medical expert who reviewed an autopsy report obtained by the Star.

Minnesota goalie Cesare Maniago’s wife, Mavis, had a clear view of Masterton’s fall from her seat in the stands. She, too, believes something else was wrong with Masterton that night, something that explains why the routine bodycheck left him unconscious even before he hit the ice.

“I saw Bill’s head after he was just checked from behind and it just looked like his eyes were in the back of his head,” she said. “I thought he was out then and just went fast right down.”

While much in hockey has changed since Masterton died, one thing hasn’t: Playing hurt is a sacred principle.

“Billy” Masterton’s commitment to the game was bred in the bone.

A ritual unfolded every Saturday evening in the small Masterton home in Winnipeg’s East Kildonan neighbourhood: brothers Bill and Bob took a bath, slipped into pajamas and sat together in front of a tiny electric fireplace while listening to Foster Hewitt on the radio.

“We spent a lot of time dreaming,” said Bob. “But my brother was the worker and he had the ethic that you need to make the NHL.”

He didn’t just work on the ice. He was a rarity in the way he prepared for a life outside the game. He starred at the University of Denver from 1957-61, helping the Pioneers win three national collegiate titles and earning tournament MVP honours his senior year. More importantly, he earned a degree.

Masterton left pro hockey after two seasons when it appeared he’d never make the NHL. He pursued a master’s degree in business engineering, eventually joining technology giant Honeywell, where he worked on the financial end of the Apollo project. He settled in Minneapolis with his high school sweetheart, Carol, and they adopted two children, Scott and Sally.

In 1967, Masterton’s nearly forgotten hope of playing in the NHL re-emerged with the league’s expansion from six to 12 teams. The Montreal Canadiens, which owned his rights, traded them to Minnesota. Blair, in charge of the North Stars, came calling.

Bob Masterton remembers his brother telling him about the NHL offer over dinner. “I looked at him and said, ‘What are you going to do?’ because he was just starting a young family,” said Bob. “It was kind of one of those things where I asked the question but I knew what he was going to do. It was always in the back of his mind.”

The season started with promise: Masterton scored the first goal in North Stars history. But 37 games later, in the days leading up to the hit that would kill him, there were signs all was not right.

The night before the fatal game against Oakland, Masterton was at Maniago’s house with his family — Scott was 3 and Sally, 1 — helping the genial goaltender celebrate his 29th birthday with teammates.

In a quiet moment, Masterton made a rare admission to Maniago: He was struggling with the effects of a head check into the glass during a recent game.

“He had been complaining of headaches,” said Maniago. “He’d got hit and even that night he said ‘Gee, I’ve really been getting these migraines and they’ve been with me for about a week.’”

In several games prior to the tragedy, Blair had also noticed something strange.

“I’d said to our trainer, ‘Do you ever look at Billy when the game’s on?’” Blair recalled. “His face is blood red, almost purple. (The trainer) said, ‘Yeah, I notice that too.’ I said, ‘I wonder if we could have him checked. There’s something wrong.’”

Masterton, who was always quick to dismiss concerns, was never sent to a doctor.

“I’m fine,” he’d say, the mantra of a thousand hockey players.

Carl Johnson, assistant general manager of Minnesota’s farm team in Memphis, said he was told Masterton had blacked out while on line rushes during practice.

Former Edmonton Oilers coach John Muckler, who coached the North Stars’ farm club in Memphis that season, said he saw signs of trouble with Masterton in training camp.

“I really believe he was injured before the fatal blow. I know that in our training camp he got hit hard a couple of times. And he got hit a few games very hard at the NHL level. His aggressiveness got him.”

Masterton wasn’t big. But he played as though he was, said Muckler.

“He wasn’t the most talented guy in the world but he really wanted to play. . . . He wanted it badly. I’ve never seen a person work so hard. He’d never show when he got hurt. He never laid down.”

When he suffered the final hit of his career, Masterton was making his patented move — crossing the opposing blueline and cutting to one side before passing the puck to a teammate.

Oakland defencemen Larry Cahan and Ron Harris moved in to check Masterton, who wound up falling on the back of his head. One account holds that Masterton regained consciousness for a few moments and repeated the words, “Never again, never again,” before closing his eyes for the final time.

Neatly typed on Masterton’s 1968 autopsy report are the words, “Likely Cause of Death: Cerebral contusions” sustained from a “fall on ice.”

After reviewing the document, Dr. Charles Tator, a Toronto neurosurgeon and concussion expert, believes Masterton suffered “second impact syndrome,” a rare occurrence where a second concussion happens on the heels of a first concussion that never healed, causing rapid and severe brain swelling.

“We know the second hit can be fatal. The usual story is just as has unfolded here, that they can even talk a bit after that final hit and then they lapse into a coma,” Tator said. “There is evidence of massive brain swelling . . . that is out of proportion to the blow that he got. My interpretation is that the seeds of this catastrophic injury were sown days before.”

What makes hockey players hide their injuries and re-enter games knowing the next hit could spell ruin?

Fear, plain and simple, said Mike Walton, a Maple Leafs rookie when Masterton died.

“Injury wasn’t really of any importance in the sense that you didn’t want to lose your job and if you couldn’t play, obviously they had to fill their roster,” said Walton, now a real estate agent in Toronto. “It was a dictatorship. They had total control.”

While knowledge of concussions has increased dramatically since Masterton died, the warrior-like mindset of professional hockey players is everlasting, he said.

“It goes on today, there’s no question about it. The general public doesn’t understand the adrenaline, the passion, the dedication the players have to get out there and perform.”

Throughout his college career, right through to his training camp in Memphis, Masterton wore a helmet, a rarity in an age when head protection was dismissed by players and management alike. It disappeared during his 38-game career as an NHLer.

“I’ve always thought of this after, that when he complained (of headaches) at least he could have put on a helmet for a couple of days,” said teammate Wayne Connolly. “But it was frowned on, really.”

Only Andre Boudrias had the temerity to challenge it on Minnesota. He was traded the following season to Chicago.

“We were not allowed to wear helmets,” said J.P. Parise. “You would get traded if you did. It was a no-no in no uncertain terms. You were a yellow belly if you wore a helmet.”

Bill’s son Scott Masterton, now 46 with four children of his own, also believes that his father’s fate was sealed long before the night when the final blow was dealt.

“My mother, before she died, talked about it. He was having some headaches. My feeling is that he may have gotten a minor concussion playing or practising on some other day . . . and when he got hit the second time, he had that head whip and when that happens, you can go unconscious in that split second before you fall.”

He speaks with the authority of an athlete accustomed to putting his body at risk.

As a 29-year-old professional U.S. kickboxing champion, the younger Masterton’s career ended with a slip and fall in the ring against the then British champion on the very date — Jan. 15th — of his father’s death, also at the age of 29.

Their professional athletic careers may have ended with eerie similarity exactly 25 years apart. But from that moment forward, the echoes of his father’s life stopped. With a blown knee and broken bones, Scott stepped away from his sport.

“I knew it was time to stop.”

How much has changed in the NHL since Masterton’s limp body was removed from the Minnesota ice? What distant early warning does his death serve to the league and to the growing ranks of players suffering from the contemporary concussion epidemic in hockey?

Philadelphia forward Ian Laperriere is one of three final nominees for this year’s Masterton Trophy — despite not playing a single game in 2010-11 as he deals with post-concussion syndrome.

Like Masterton, Laperriere earned an unlikely place in the pros with grit. Twice last season, Laperriere took slapshots in the face. Still, he returned to play following lost teeth, hundreds of stitches and even the discovery of a spot on his brain visible on a CAT scan.

Laperriere’s brain was bleeding. But four neurologists cleared him to play after the spot disappeared.

“People said I was crazy, but I’m like, ‘They brought me here to show the young guys the right way,’” said the 37-year-old Laperriere, who had signed with Philly before the 2009-10 season.

His playing style has endeared him to hockey fans. Nowhere was that more apparent than during a standing ovation for Laperriere during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Boston last year. The scoreboard showed a video of Laperriere getting nailed in face with a puck in the opening series against New Jersey, blood pouring from a gash over his right eye.

As dramatic music replaced a play-by-play call of the incident, the video moved backwards in slow motion until just before Laperriere’s face absorbed the slapshot. The question flashed up on the big screen: “What if Ian didn’t believe in sacrifice?”

Laperriere acknowledged his career may be over, though he can’t bring himself to retire. He admits he lied to team doctors about his post-concussion issues in order to return for a shot at the Stanley Cup.

“If I had a slim chance to play, I’m going to play.”

That’s a philosophy that Scott Masterton views with the ambivalence of both a former competitive athlete and a man left fatherless at the age of 3.

He sees both nobility and short-sightedness in the demands placed on hockey’s most devoted players. He understands how passion and perseverance can deliver both glory and death.

“The idea that you persevere goes back to time immemorial. It’s a badge of honour,” he said. “It’s also the mindset that will shorten their lives and destroy their bodies. Men are the way men are.”

The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, for perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey, will be awarded June 22.

Heads, you lose
Hockey Canada bans head shots to reduce concussions

Scott Fisher, Calgary Sun, Sunday, May 29, 2011


It’s like dealing with a ticking time bomb.

You can either wait for it to go off and deal with the carnage, or take preventative measures to minimize the damage.

Hockey Canada has decided to go with the safer approach, banning all head hits.

Newly elected Hockey Canada board chairman Michael Bruni said the organization is intent on leading the way in the fight against concussions.

“It’s long overdue,” Bruni, a Calgarian, said of the zero tolerance stance Hockey Canada has taken against head shots.

“We had no choice but to show some leadership. This has been a lingering issue in the sport for a long time.”

Hockey Canada has implemented mandatory penalties for all hits — both accidental and intentional — at all levels of minor, junior (levels A, B, C and D), senior and female competition.

The new rules are not in effect in Canada’s three major junior circuits as the WHL, OHL and QMJHL are self-governing.

“We have to make this safe for the young kids,” Bruni said.

Bruni said the new penalties — ranging from a minor or double-minor up to a major and game misconduct — will act as deterrents.

But the true focus will be to instil a level of respect in young players.

“We have to look at the coaches and make sure they are coaching the game in a fashion so that it’s not intimidating.

“Everyone, including the parents, need to know this conduct is inexcusable.”

Bruni said action had to be taken for two reasons.

“First, people won’t participate.

“And second, something significant might happen. And once you get politicians involved, extreme measures will take place.”

While no one is against the idea of abolishing head shots, Bruni said he expects to hear some dissention.

“There are some people who are fundamentally adverse to rules,” he said.

“There may be some who will say that by doing this, we’ll be eliminating more than just head shots, and that it will take some of the aggressiveness away from the game.

“But I would hope they would be in the minority.”

With the game’s biggest star, Sidney Crosby, still recovering from a New Year’s Day concussion, head shots have received plenty of attention in the past five months.

“We hope these rules act as a catalyst to change attitudes,” Bruni said.

“We’re not just at a tipping point. We’re at a crisis point.”

Dan Hamhuis applauds Hockey Canada's ‘zero-tolerance’ on head shots

Donna Spencer Calgary - The Canadian Press - Monday, May. 30, 2011


Hockey Canada's hardened stance on head shots, aimed specifically at minor hockey players, got nods of approval from a couple of NHL players long past their minor-hockey days.

Canada's governing body of hockey voted in “zero-tolerance” measures strengthening penalties for head shots during its annual general meeting in Calgary on the weekend.

Starting next season, in minor and female hockey, any contact with the head will be penalized whether the contact is intentional or not.

An errant stick glancing off an opposing players's helmet, for example, should no longer be overlooked, but is a two-minute minor.

Penalties can now escalate to a double minor and to a major and a game misconduct at the discretion of the referee depending on the violence of head contact.

“I think it's a good step if you can instill that in young players' minds at an early age, just for them to have that awareness out there, always knowing where a guy's head (is) and how dangerous it is for head injuries,” Vancouver Canucks defenceman Dan Hamhuis said Monday.

Hamhuis, whose Canucks were preparing to face the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final Wednesday, suffered two concussions this past season.

“If you get it ingrained in players early and get their habits changed, it will be a good thing,” he added.

Canucks teammate Aaron Rome sat out the last two games of Vancouver's Western Conference final versus San Jose. He was hit hard by Sharks' forward Jamie McGinn in Game 3 of the series and appeared to be concussed, but has been cleared to play in the final.

McGinn received a boarding major and a game misconduct. Rome gave Hockey Canada's new policy a thumbs-up.

“It should be taught from a young age that you respect the other guys on the ice,” Rome said. “It's good, especially starting at a young age, that they can't target or hit a player's head.”

The penalty “head contact” will replace “checking to the head” next season.

Previously, a checking-to-the-head penalty in minor hockey was typically a two-minute minor and a 10-minute misconduct. Now, a player can be booted from the game.

While discipline for head shots at the junior and senior level has been amalgamated under the title of head shots, the penalties at those levels remain the same, according to Hockey Canada manager of officiating Todd Anderson.

So in Junior A, B, C, D and senior hockey, a minor and a misconduct, or a major and a game misconduct can be assessed at the discretion of the referee. Also, a major penalty and game misconduct, or a match penalty, can be given to a player who injures an opponent under the head-contact rule.

“The junior and senior application has been in existence since we brought in checking to the head,” Anderson explained. “It's just re-worded to include the minor and female.

“In junior and senior, you're just going to see, instead of a check-to-the-head penalty, it's just going to be known now as a two (minutes) and 10 (misconduct) for head contact. It's consistent for the rules they're playing under now.”

Penticton Vees head coach Fred Harbinson says he's lost an NHL-drafted player in the first round of B.C. junior league playoffs each of the last two years. The reason? Concussions via a hit to the head.

Harbinson says Hockey Canada's new policy was a topic of discussion in the Vees office Monday morning.

“Anything we can do to eliminate some of these head shots, we're going to support and I think you have to start at the young ages,” Harbinson said.

“It will be interesting to see how they call it in the future. We want more and more kids in our game. You see guys like Sidney Crosby not finishing the year and big names like that, all of a sudden parents are getting a little nervous about putting their kids in hockey and that's the last thing we want to see.”

Harbinson is concerned more judgement calls have been added to the referee's plate under the new rules.

Hockey Canada is preparing educational materials to distribute mid-July to officials, parents and players, according to chief operating officer Scott Smith.

“We need to do some work to make sure fans and parents know what we're trying to accomplish and know what we're going to call, and hopefully that will help us manage some of the emotion that comes with a new rule change,” he said.

“Our whole approach is to make the game as safe as possible for young players and to make we're doing everything we can to develop respect amongst young players. We're comfortable the rule changes we have move us in that direction.”

Calgary midget triple-A coach Keith Fagnan says minor hockey coaches will be motivated to teach players checking minus head contact because the penalties are now harsher.

“I do think it's a good thing because it puts the onus back on the coaches to make sure they're teaching checking properly and making sure guys go right back to the fundamentals,” said the head coach of the Calgary Northstars.

Hockey Calgary president Perry Cavanaugh acknowledged young referees will need guidance on how to call head contact penalties. He also hopes that parents and players will take it upon themselves to find out about the new policy before the season starts.

“I encourage parents to take the time to get a copy of the rule and to sit down and discuss it with their son or daughter and if they have questions to contact their local minor-hockey association seeking clarification,” Cavanaugh said.

“This is a critically important initiative and everyone needs to be fully aware going into the season what the expectations are.”

The NHL blew it in Atlanta
Why didn't hockey work in Atlanta? It's tough to sell a game that isn't good

By STEVE BUFFERY, QMI Agency, June 1 2011



TORONTO - Yes, the great NHL shell game continues.

The Atlanta Thrashers have now gone the way of the California Golden Seals, Kansas City Scouts, Cleveland Barons, Hartford Whalers, Atlanta Flames, and, yikes, the Winnipeg Jets ... and those are just some of the relocations that have occurred in my lifetime.

And I’m not that old (compared, to say, a mature Norwegian Spruce).

“Step right up and pick a city. Sorry sir, you lose. Try again.”

Is this a league founded on smoke and mirrors, or what?

Sure, every professional sports loop in North America has had its share of relocations. But the NHL seems to have made it an art form.

Here’s my take on the move of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg — a “Canadian outpost” as one Atlanta columnist called it on Tuesday.

The NHL failed Atlanta more than Atlanta failed the NHL.

It’s the product.

The product is simply not good enough.

There, I said it. Let the bitterness flow.

Look, if you’re a business person and you introduce a product to a new market and the product is truly exceptional, then you will be able to sell that product.

Doesn’t matter if it’s doughnuts, brasseries or pucks. If the product is great — as the NHL promised when it ventured into places like Atlanta and Florida and Phoenix — then people would buy it, even people who didn’t grow up with the product.

But NHL hockey is no longer a great product.

Some playoff games have been great, yes. But that’s more to do with the intensity than anything else.

For those of us who grew up playing and loving the sport, it’s hard to turn our back on the NHL. It’s like an old pair of skates. They hurt your feet and sometimes the puck gets stuck between the blade and the boot, but you can’t throw them away.

But for people in non-traditional markets, people who consider hockey the domain of toothless hose heads, dour Scandinavians and gloomy Russians, the sport is lacking big-time.

Otherwise, they would have jumped whole-heartedly on the bandwagon.

There aren’t enough goals. There aren’t enough open-ice plays. There are too many defensive schemes and systems. Honestly, if NHL hockey was truly great, do you the league would have tinkered with the game as it has in recent years? They’ve brought in rule changes to open the game up — two-line passing, the tag-up off-side rule, cracking down on hooking and holding, etc. It’s all good. But it’s not enough — especially if you have to sell the game in markets where other recreational activities rule, like NFL football, or big-time college sports.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again ... the biggest problem is that the NHL is too diluted. There’s not enough talent for the number of teams. The talent pool is not deep enough. Hockey draws from a very limited number of places, particularly compared with basketball, soccer, baseball. There simply isn’t enough talent to support 30 teams.

Sports fans aren’t idiots. They can see that.

And I don’t buy that argument that winning solves anything.

Yes, winning helps, but you should be able to survive in a viable market even if your team goes into prolonged slumps. There should never be the threat of relocation just because a team continually fails to make the playoffs. If that’s the case, then the market isn’t right. When you have winning teams, you have losing teams. A healthy league can survive that.

The NHL will never be truly healthy if, year in and year out, there is talk of relocation and teams bleeding money.

Relocation fees are nice, sure, but they’re a sign of a sick market.

Every week, in years past, when I received my Sports Illustrated in the mail (thank you Wee Willie), I got riled up at the lack of NHL coverage.

I even contemplated sending a letter to the editor a few times, like an old crank Bubba professes me to be.

But the more you look at what the NHL has become, it becomes clearer that the league truly gets what it deserves.