Sidney Crosby could have died.
When it was announced on Jan. 28 that he might have had a C1/C2 fracture in his neck, Internet message boards immediately took to it. Posters began talking about how some have died from C1/C2 fractures and the peril behind them.
The Penguins then disclosed on Feb. 1 that it was not a fracture in his neck but rather a soft tissue injury, calming some people but raising questions with others.
What if Crosby's injury had been fatal? Imagine what the NHL would have done to prevent head and neck injuries. Then wonder, ‘Would it really take a death for these precautions to become a major part of the NHL?'
It's possible that if his injury was fatal the NHL would have stopped play in the league for not only a mourning period but a brainstorming period. Maybe they would have looked into shock absorbing boards and better padding. Maybe they would have enacted harsher punishment for illegal hits sooner. These are all possibilities, but not things that have been done to this point.
Better boards aren't impossible to find. While on a college tour at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I saw students developing a project for boards that would better absorb shock. These boards may lower injuries from being slammed against the glass. They might be a good investment for the NHL and something the league could look into.
It's not only the NHL that needs to take action. All hockey leagues, whether professional, major junior, college or high school, need to take better precautions. In Canada alone about 1,200 hospital visits a year are from hockey-related injuries. Half of those injuries are in young boys ages 10-19 and around 200 were head injuries according to an article released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
In Minnesota on Dec. 30, a young hockey player named Jack Jablonski was checked from behind so brutally it is unlikely he will ever walk again. He has made progress and can now feed himself while taking small steps towards full body movement.
In Ontario in October 2009, a member of the OHL's Kitchener Rangers, Ben Fanelli, was hit so hard from behind that his helmet was sent flying before his head hit the glass. He then collapsed, unconscious. He suffered severe brain trauma and a fractured skull as well as memory loss, specifically forgetting the game in which he was hit. He returned to hockey this season and the player who hit him was suspended for the remainder of his major junior career.
If these stories aren't enough to stress the importance of better protection and precautions then I'm not sure what is.
Thankfully, one group has looked more into equipment and how it can help to prevent or reduce head trauma within hockey. Bauer Hockey recently released the new Re-Akt helmet with spokesperson Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers. Giroux missed four games in December recovering from a concussion. The helmet is said to take medical technology and implement it in its design. The major selling point for the helmet is that it has a "suspend-tech" liner, which is supposed to protect a player's head from overly shaking and moving when the helmet is hit.
Now the onus is on the NHL and other hockey leagues to take more strides in the right direction as 72 members of NHL clubs have already been sidelined during the first half of the season with concussions. Do they really need something more convincing than numbers? Is it really going to take a death to get hockey on the right track?
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