Excuses, not science

During Monday’s pre-Stanley Cup news conference, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was asked if he still maintains his view that there’s no connection between hits to the head in hockey and a degenerative brain disease.

It’s not a surprise question. Bettman increasingly stands out as the equivalent of a climate-change denier when it comes to the effects of concussions and long-term brain damage.

With a clipped “there’s nothing new on the subject,” he left it to deputy commissioner Bill Daly to explain further. “This is not the commissioner’s view, it’s the science view,” Daly said. “There’s not enough information to draw that link.”

The trouble with that, of course, is that science is far more complicated than the league would like players and fans to believe.

It may be true that science hasn’t pinpointed exactly which hockey player — or anyone else with the misfortune to suffer repeated hits to the head for that matter — will be in danger of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and why. That’s one of the many complex, concussion-related issues researchers are currently investigating through detailed scientific studies.

But long before CTE was discovered in professional athletes, science already knew that concussions are bad and multiple concussions are worse.

The increasing focus on CTE — a single terrifying outcome that can only be diagnosed after death — has skewed the entire debate around concussions in sport and created a ready excuse for Bettman and like-minded sport executives to delay muchneeded safety measures.

Bettman runs a lucrative business and likes his hockey product just the way it is. And, no doubt, lawyers have suggested that continued denials of any link may help defend against lawsuits by players who’ve suffered debilitating effects from head trauma, and their families.

But let’s not pretend that’s got anything to do with the state of science. It doesn’t. It’s nothing more than an excuse to maintain the status quo and, shamefully, put players at unnecessary risk.

The right course for the sport is clear. As hockey great Ken Dryden puts it: “No hits to the head, no excuses.”