Mandatory neck guards proposed
Lawmaker’s bill for K-12 students follows hockey player’s death
When state Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-Derby, heard about the death of St. Luke’s hockey player Teddy Balkind from a fatal skate laceration on Jan. 6, she said her other job’s mindset took over.
“I immediately went into athletic trainer mode,” Klarides-Ditria said Friday after she announced she would introduce legislation to require neck guards for all young hockey players in Connecticut. Klarides-Ditria is a certified sports athletic trainer.
Different jurisdictions handle neck laceration protectors differently. While the CIAC, which governs sports in most public high schools and some private and Catholic schools, requires them for boys hockey, and interscholastic girls hockey follows suit, they aren’t required for many prep school or college players. USA Hockey, the sport’s national governing body, recommends them but doesn’t require them.
Authorities have not said if 16-year-old Balkind was wearing a neck protector or, if not, if a neck guard would have prevented catastrophic injury in his case. The head of St. Luke’s School sent a
letter to families this week stressing that Balkind’s injuries came “through no fault of anyone’s” when a player’s skate cut Balkind’s neck during the Jan. 6 junior varsity game against Brunswick.
The General Assembly’s session begins in February. Klarides-Ditria’s bill, which covers school-age children through the 12th grade, starts in the Committee on Children, she said, and goes through the legislative process from there.
“I’m hoping there’s a lot of bipartisan support,” she said.
The General Assembly combs through thousands of bills every year that lawmakers propose and typically adopts a small fraction of them, including a tiny number from members of the minority party who are not in leadership.
One threshold legislative leaders look at is how many people a proposed bill may help and whether intervention by the state is needed.
The state enacted a requirement for schools to develop an emergency action plan, taking effect this year.
“(That) was for this exact situation, so everyone knows how to act as a team, to do everything they could to get Teddy to the ambulance and the hospital,” Klarides-Ditria said. “They all worked together to give him a fighting chance.”
Klarides-Ditria — a Republican representing the 105th district, which includes Beacon Falls, Seymour and part of Derby — said she hopes this legislation gives the next kid even more of a fighting chance.
“We all mourn the loss of Teddy Balkind,” said state Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, a Norwalk Democrat, on hearing about the proposal.
“I grew up playing youth hockey myself and certainly appreciate how the hockey community as a whole has come together on such a tragic loss. Any way we can help make hockey safer, it should be considered, but I also want to make sure we allow players, parents, the CIAC and private schools to weigh in as well.”