NHL and their head shots/concussions issues

The league has come up with a 5 step plan to curve to curb concussions which goes as follows:

1. former player Brendan Shanahan working with NHLPA on equipment reforms;

2. Player who looks concussed they will be removed from the bench area and sent to a quiet spot where a medical doctor (not the team therapist) gives the player a SCAT test before possibly returning to the game;

3. Repeat offenders on illegal hit to the head will cause the head coach and/or the team will be penalized as well;

4. A safety engineer will do a full evaluation of the playing area at each of the league's 30 rinks and the individual areas will have to conform to higher safety standards;

5. Putting a blue ribbon panel together of former players, current players, team GMs, and maybe owners to look at the issues of concussions going forward;


In reality the NHL needs to get serious about disciplining players who hit opponents in the head like given them a suspension of 20 or more games automatically which means that even if it is completely accidental like the Chara hit and Drew Doughty getting hit into a stanchion as well along with the hit Sidney Crosby took on New Year's day. If the league does not put their foot down after their poster boy Sidney Crosby gets a concussion and be out for months and the possibly of basically having him not being the same again just like Marc Savard who has not played very many games since the Matt Cooke hit that put him on the sidelines practically ever since. Until the NHL sets an example with a player getting over 10 games or even over 20 games for a head hit the fans will not take them seriously and that goes double for the players which is a very scary thing because until the players have a fear in their mind that they will be suspended huge for a hit to the head.

Which means that they will continue to hurt each other and put their co-workers on the sideline in-diffidently and hurt their chances to make a living in the sport or even away from the sport and it looks like nobody has learned anything from the Bertuzzi's incident as ended Steve Moore's normal life, the Chris Simon's incident where he took down Jarkko Ruutu and walked over the back of his leg with his skates. The Marty McSorley incident where he swung his stick and hit Donald Brashear in the head and Brashear hit his head on the ice and lost consciousness and suffered a grade 3 concussion and McSorley got an in-diffidently suspension but he was at the end of his career anyways. If they wanted to be taken seriously why not suspend Trevor Gillies in-diffidently after being sat down for 9 games and when he came back it took less than 2 minutes on the ice of his game back he hit Cal Clutterbuck from behind and got suspend again this time for 10 games which is nothing for a guy who clearly did not get the message the first time.

When the NHL takes the actions of their players seriously only than will everybody else

Tom Mehegan