PROGRAM MEASURES HEAD TRAUMA.

Most hockey teams go though ups and downs throughout the course of a game or season. The Saskatoon Renegades have the data to prove it.

The midget Tier 2 team — which has a 9-11-2 record — has been tracking contact to the head sustained by its players since October.

Each player’s information is logged into a computer from a quarter-sized sensor — called a Safebrain — after every game and graphed out based on the G-force level of every impact.

The wavy lines on the graphs not only measure the impact, but whether the contact occurred to the side of the player’s head, to the top, and to the front or back of the helmet.

The information is then sent to the Dr. Martin Mirazik at University of Alberta for analysis after every game.

“At the end of the day, we’re hoping to give doctors the pertinent information,” said Renegades head coach Bruce Kidd. “You can’t prevent it with this but it’s about getting a kid to a concussion specialist.”

The Safebrain device has a red indicator that goes off whenever a player sustains impact to the head greater than 18 Gs, and Kidd will start asking simple questions and looking for signs of a concussion at that point.

Because that G-force level is approximately a third of what David Steckel’s hit on Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby in January 2010 was, the indicator goes off several times during a game.

Kidd has to constantly look at the arena’s time clock so he can pinpoint the time that a potentially injurious hit might have occurred.

“I’m watching everything,” he said. “There are a few moments where a boy will come in (to the bench) and the light will be flashing, and I’ll take my eyes off the rink to concentrate on the boy.

“But I do have assistant coaches on the bench to help me through it. At the same time, for a new coach it might be a little tough.”

While the Renegades have lost players to a broken sternum, a broken collarbone and a separated shoulder, no one has been forced to miss a game because of a concussion.

Kidd’s son, Denin, sustained a minor concussion in a Dec. 18 contest, when he hit into the boards from a metre away.

The hit caused the sensor to light up but, after talking to his father, the 17-year-old left-winger sat out for a period and returned to finish the game.

He was taken to the hospital as a precaution.

“It wasn’t a hard hit, but my head kind of whipped against the glass,” said Denin. “Right after that I had an instant headache.”

Denin played in the Renegades’ next game Jan. 5 and hasn’t suffered from any residual effects.

But if he does take any other rough hits in any of his team’s final three regular season games or playoff contests, Kidd hopes the Safebrain can help identify the problem.

“First and foremost, if this is a preventive thing of any kind, any sort, for any player in any sport, then why not be a part of it?” he said.

“If every team had it, they’d have some information.”