Crosby’s crash into the boards rings alarm bells
Incident proves the NHL’s concussion protocol is flawed, Barry Svrluga writes.
The NHL’s concussion evaluation and management protocol is a seven-page document issued before this season that provides requirements for each club pertaining to each player. It mandates baseline testing and provides for the implementation of spotters at each game, the judge and jury as to when players should be removed from the ice.
There was a concussion spotter at Monday ’s second-round playoff game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals. Presumably, that spotter was not deciding between pretzels and potato chips as an in-game snack when Sidney Crosby, the NHL’s flagbearer, careened down the ice in the first period, clipped the side of the Capitals’ net and crashed headfirst into the boards.
When you read the evaluation and management protocol, and you look at the list of reasons a player must be removed from a game — not “can be,” but “must be” — you wonder how Crosby didn’t miss a shift.
Crosby has had four documented concussions. The most recent came last week, when he was cross-checked in the head by Washington’s Matt Niskanen. Crosby’s headlong crash into the boards Monday was enough to cause some people to shudder and look away. But he did not enter the NHL’s concussion evaluation and management protocol.
“I think what you’re talking about is the difference between checking with a doctor and entering the concussion protocol,” Crosby said at the Penguins’ practice Tuesday.
The protocol requires mandatory removal should a player report any one of a series of symptoms. A player who is slow to get up and clutches his head must be doing so because of one of three mechanisms of injury. Slamming into the boards isn’t one of them, and thus removal isn’t mandatory.
“It doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be concussions caused by heads hitting boards,” Chris Nowinski, a co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, told the Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty. “And so you shouldn’t restrict your spotters.”
The Penguins did nothing wrong Monday. Crosby’s own self-evaluation reported no symptoms, and the team’s staff checked him out.
But there’s a flaw here. You can’t watch Crosby crumple against the boards, know his history with head injuries and think he shouldn’t be evaluated further. If the Penguins and Crosby handled things according to NHL protocol, then the NHL has to change its protocol — and fast.