Keep players safe
It has been a relatively good week for the health and safety of Canadian athletes.
Wednesday afternoon, the CFL and its players’ association announced an end to in-season, full-contact practices, and an extra rest week for every team in next year’s schedule.
Thursday morning, the provincial government revealed it is one step closer to comprehensive concussion safety guidelines for amateur athletes across Ontario, following a report submitted by the Rowan’s Law Advisory Committee. The panel of sport and medical experts sprang from a coroner’s inquest into the 2013 death of Rowan Stringer, a 17-year-old who died after suffering several concussions playing rugby.
Taken together these two developments represent significant progress for player safety and indicate that administrators at all levels of Canadian sport are smartening up about brain health.
According to the province, 39 per cent of youth who visit emergency rooms for sports injuries are diagnosed with concussions. Rowan’s Law recommendations focus on identifying and treating concussions, as well as strengthening return-to-play protocols.
The CFL’s new regulations don’t focus on acute injuries, but do aim to mitigate the chronic trauma that can lead to poor cognitive health for aging football players. Boston University studied the brains of 111 deceased football players and in July revealed that 110 showed signs of the degenerative disease CTE.
Adding a week to the regular season gives players more time to recover from the sport’s brutal on-field action. And eliminating fullcontact practices steeply decreases the number of collisions players absorb between games, which should preserve their bodies and brains and improve the on-field product. Building on this week’s progress is the next challenge. The Rowan’s Law report was tabled in the legislature on Thursday, but the guidelines it recommends are still pending.
The CFL, meanwhile, cites general “player safety” in this week’s rule changes, but doesn’t specifically cite CTE as a concern, even as evidence mounts that repeated head trauma in sports like football cause the condition. Commissioner Randy Ambrosie has demurred rather than acknowledge a link between football and degenerative brain disease. Currently the CFL faces two lawsuits over the longterm effects of repeated concussions on retired players — a classaction suit and another from former Argo Arland Bruce III.
So while the CFL and its players’ association made a laudable move to limit future concussions the league can still do more to help former players already suffering. It may seem churlish to complain after a week of progress, but more must be done. The stakes are simply too high.