‘Concussion problem’ in Canada, Dryden warns
TORONTO — Big bad Soviets? Broad Street Bullies? Boston Bruins?
Throughout the 1970s, Ken Dryden famously protected Team Canada and Montreal Canadiens hockey nets from those imposing threats.
Now he’s on a mission to fight a far more serious threat — on behalf of young Canadian athletes in all sports, at all levels.
That is, concussions. The Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender and former Liberal cabinet minister on Wednesday will tell a parliamentary subcommittee studying sports-related concussions in Canada that the problem is no longer awareness.
Rather, per a copy of his planned remarks obtained by Postmedia, Dryden will tell the subcommittee that there “is plenty of awareness. The problem is sports decision makers who don’t take this awareness and act.
“We have a problem ... A knee that limps is one thing. A brain that limps is another.”
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Health formed this non-partisan working group last month, for the purpose of developing recommendations on how to make sports safer to better protect Canadian youths from mild traumatic brain injuries.
Some 210,000 concussions are reported in Canada annually, according to the subcommittee.
Wednesday kicks off witness hearings involving representatives of all stakeholders — from amateur and professional athletes, to families, national sports organizations, coaching groups, researchers and key members of the medical community.
A noted author, sport historian and lawyer as well, Dryden will further tell the subcommittee that sport leaders going back to the 1800s have fought seminal changes to the way their game is played:
“Imagine today a hockey game with a lacrosse ball, no substitutions and no forward passing. You’d have to imagine it because nobody would want to play it or watch it.
“All sports change and they keep changing, and hockey is far better than it ever was, played by far more skilful players, just as other sports are. But now hockey is also more dangerous, just as some of our other sports are, and that’s why we’re here.
“How can we help our sports to change again, to matter as much as they always have, to make them better still, AND less dangerous?”
Dryden will say it’s important, first, that parliamentarians understand that science does not have all the answers right now regarding concussions and possibly linked brain diseases.
And that’s OK, because science is “not about knowing once and forever. Science is about knowing the best we can know at any particular moment. The world is flat until it isn’t. Smoking is no big deal until it is.”
Dryden will say it’s crucial that Canadians understand that scientists ultimately do not make sports’ concussion safety rules.
“Sports decision makers do … You as decision makers in your sport have the authority over your game. You have the rules and regulations of your game, and the way we play it, in YOUR hands.”
“What are you doing about your game to make it just as exciting to play and to watch and to make it safer? This is your job. Your responsibility.”
The subcommittee intends to table its report on findings and recommendations by June.
In March, Ontario became the first province to pass concussion safety legislation aimed at protecting amateur athletes and educating coaches and youth sport leaders regarding safest practices pertaining to prevention, treatment and return to play.