CONCUSSION BATTLE PLAN: ELIMINATE HITTING IN HOCKEY
Counting on better helmets isn’t enough in today’s faster game, symposium hears
At his peak, Eric Lindros was an unstoppable force.
A power forward who blended strength and skill like no other before him or since, he built a Hall of Fame career on playing physical hockey. But after a series of concussions forced him to retire from the NHL in 2007, the 45-year-old has a different view on how the game should be played.
Speaking at See The Light, a concussion symposium at Western University on Thursday, Lindros said it’s time for the NHL to seriously think about removing body contact from the game.
It’s a drastic suggestion, one that a 20-year-old Lindros would probably roll his eyes at. But if implemented, it could save the next generation from going through what Lindros and many other retired players are now dealing with, while also keeping the best parts of the sport intact.
“Let’s get right to it,” said Lindros. “You talk about me playing. I love hockey and I continue playing hockey. But it’s funny. The hockey I was playing all those years was really physical and I have just as much fun (these days), but we don’t run into one another. We’re still having as much fun, the same enjoyment of it.
“We know concussions are down in a league without contact.”
Lindros is speaking not only as a player who suffered several debilitating concussions over the course of his career, something that he said left him “quite bitter,” but also as a father and a person who doesn’t want anyone else to go through what he did. And he’s not alone.
Ken Dryden didn’t play the game like Lindros did. But the retired Hall of Fame goaltender called upon NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to embrace his role as a “decision maker” and implement a rule that would effect real change.
“Concussions are going to happen,” said Dryden. “The question is, how can they be reduced significantly? That’s where the focus needs to be … we want desperately for the answer to be equipment. There’s a hit to the head, you put a better helmet on. But it doesn’t work.”
Lindros and Dryden spoke on a day when the NHLPA announced a joint donation of $3.125 million toward concussion research. But while doctors and specialists at the symposium spoke of better ways to treat and diagnose head injuries, Dryden said the simpler solution is to avoid concussions in the first place.
“Is that which is being done anywhere close to the dimensions of the problem? That’s the real question. And the answer is no,” said Dryden. “The problem is science takes time and the games are being played tomorrow. You need to make decisions now.”
Indeed, while the league has made strides in attempting to reduce hits to the head and blind-side collisions, the game is as physical as it’s ever been because of the speed of its players and the pace of play.
Don’t believe it? Watch video of games in the 1990s or 1980s, when players hooked and held each other in the neutral zone, preventing anyone from gaining top speed before delivering a check. Or go back and view black-and-white footage from the 1950s. That’s what Dryden did while conducting research for his book, Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador, and the Future of Hockey.
Some might call them the glory days.
According to Dryden, it was more like the glacial days.
“They were unbelievably slow,” said Dryden. “And I started timing the shifts of the players. The average shift for a player was two minutes. That was the nature of the game then … and what happens when you have a game that moves that slow — and it has to move that slow because you’re on the ice that much longer — you get coasting, circling, bursting, coasting, coasting and then you go off.
“There’s all kinds of space, there’s all kinds of time. There are many fewer collisions … There was no such phrase of finishing your check. That was the nature of the game. As the years have gone on, the shifts have shortened and the speed has increased.”
By comparison, today’s game is a “relay race,” said Dryden.
“For 60 seconds, you don’t stop. It means there’s much less time, much less space, and much more collisions and much more forceful collisions.”
And it’s getting faster. And faster.
Sure, you can improve the technology on helmets and instruct players on where they can and cannot hit. And scientists can figure out ways in which to better diagnose and treat head injuries. Or, as Lindros and Dryden suggested, the league can take away hitting altogether and put the focus on a player’s skill.
After all, it’s already happening on its own. The days of players like Lindros running around and hitting everything that moved are coming to an end.
Last year’s leading scorer was Connor McDavid. And no one seemed to mind that he had just 28 hits — 226 fewer than teammate Milan Lucic.
“Look, the league is going to do what it wants to do until it’s put to task, whether in the courtroom or the boardroom,” said Lindros. “I still think more things can happen at the pro end.”