DON’T STOP FIGHTING, MANN SAYS

While he wants to do his part to help limit concussions in hockey, former NHL tough guy Jimmy Mann doesn’t believe the answer lies in a ban on fighting.

“You can’t take that out of the game,” the former Winnipeg Jets first-round pick said. “Fighting for sure, if you get a good one, you’re going to get a concussion, but if you get hit along the boards, the same thing can happen.”

Mann said he believes open-ice hits in the neutral zone — like the one the Buffalo Sabres’ Jake McCabe put on Jets star Patrik Laine last season — are the biggest problem.

He said fighting has been so watered down in the NHL that it’s not a massive concern.

“In our day, we used to have brawls,” Mann said. “I knocked a few guys out and for sure they would have had a concussions. You don’t see too many guys getting knocked out now. They get into a fight, they scramble — it’s not as big a part of the game.”

Kerry Goulet, co-founder of the Stop Concussions Foundation and the Prevention Handbook for Hockey, said it is up to athletes and their families to make a difference and not rely on the leagues alone to change the rules of the game.

“We understand that we can learn from our past,” Goulet said. “Years ago, my parents smoked in a car (when) I was a kid and there was second-hand smoke. We educated ourselves and realized that was not a good thing.

“We’ve got to make sure we protect ourselves, first, as athletes, from ourselves.”