Game needs to change: Dryden
Hits to the head are a problem, and the National Hockey League needs to stop them from happening, former Montreal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden told a packed Roselawn Centre last Thursday.
Dryden spoke about the dangers of hits to the head as he talked about his latest book, Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador, and the Future of Hockey, at the Canadian Author Series event.
“We’ve always recognized the vulnerability of the head … that the head needs protection,” said Dryden, a six-time Stanley Cup winner with the Canadiens and former president of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He said it makes no difference to the brain from where the hit comes, be it an elbow, high stick or from a body on the ice.
What brought Dryden to the topic of hits to the head and concussions and the story of Montador, who played 571 games for six teams in the NHL, was watching players’ careers, like those of Eric Lindros and
Paul Kariya, diminish over the years.
“I found in reading obituaries of players I watched as a kid after their great moments were chronicled, in the last few paragraphs there would be mention of their difficult final years with dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”
He then began to see more obits, week after week and month after month, of athletes who went before their time, people like Junior Seau, Bob Probert, Mike Webster and Montador.
Montador was diagnosed with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) after his death in 2015. CTE is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma, and its symptoms may include behavioural problems, mood problems and problems with thinking.
As Dryden looked at the issue of head injuries and concussions, he started to write articles about it and said people started to notice and comment how he was raising awareness.
With more career-ending head injuries and deaths, Dryden realized awareness was not enough.
“Most of us most of the time about most things are not in positions of authority, for us, we think awareness is enough, we hope it’s enough, it has to be enough.
“Scientists, the media, citizen activists, we have to think that if we lay out the story clearly, conclusively and overwhelmingly, then those who are decision-makers will take this awareness and apply it. What else would they do?”
Except, Dryden said, those decisionmakers most often don’t act.
So writing the book, Dryden decided to go about creating the conditions and circumstances necessary so decision-makers would make better decisions.
“That’s what Game Change is about. I knew I needed to write it a certain way and then after it was released, talk about it in a certain way. First of all, most of all, it had to the story of a life, of a person a lot like other people. Not a superstar, that person has to unique an experience, not a good or enforcer, it’s the same thing, they have too unique an experience. It had to be a player like every other player and everyman player.”
That’s why he chose Montador — an everyman player, a player who loved to be part of a team, loved being around others and was loved by those he played with, a player who is on every team in the league, whether it be the last place team or Stanley Cup winners.
The first 300 or pages of the book, Dryden said he focused on the player’s life so readers would care about him.
“So in this case, when’s Steve’s career diminishes, when his life is changed by brain injuries, he matters to us. It’s someone who makes us know that we can never forget why brain injuries in hockey matter. Someone who makes us know undeniably that these are the stakes.”