More research has been done into concussions over the last five years than any point in time previously.
The surprising thing is that it is a former professional wrestler spearheading this research.
Chris Nowinski had his wrestling career end after just a couple of years in the ring due to a concussion. He continued to wrestle with for three shows after suffering the injury.
It’s not surprising when you look deeper, however, and find that he is the only Harvard grad to sign with the WWE and that it was his need for knowledge about what he was going through that pushed him to start his crusade. He co-founded the Sports Legacy Institute with leading concussion expert Dr. Robert Cantu. The institute began his research, but it wasn’t long before SLI joined with some of the leading researchers into degenerative brain diseases — most notably Dr. Robert Stern — at Boston University and formed the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE).
The research done by CSTE has revolutionized how concussions are treated and approached at all levels of sport and even the military.
It is this research that has appeared to have discovered the link between head injuries — specifically concussions — and degenerative brain disease like dementia.
What happens is a protein called Tau is released and starts to overtake healthy brain matter. The official name is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
In boxing, they call it being punch drunk.
The first athlete SLI-diagnosed — although there were previous diagnoses — was wrestler Chris Benoit, who murdered his family before taking his own life. He suffered thousands of headshots throughout his career — one of his finishing moves was in fact a flying head butt off the top rope to his opponent’s head. He grew increasingly abusive and paranoid over the years until finally snapping.
He is far from the only one whose life ended violently and whose brain — after being studied post-mortem, the only time Tau can be detected — showed advanced levels of CTE.
Former NFLers Andre Waters and Terry Long committed suicide. Former Steeler Justin Strzelczyk died in a fiery car crash following a high-speed chase. Ex-Houston Oiler John Grimsley died of an accidental gunshot wound. Mike Webster spent most of his post-NFL life a shell of his former-self, disoriented, confused, riddled with dementia and living out of his pickup truck. There have been many others.
It’s not just longtime NFLers who suffer from CTE; it was found in an 18-year-old high school football player.
It was these cases that finally got the NFL to come around and donate $1 million to furthering research of CTE and to up the ante on their fines — although it wouldn’t hurt if they broke out the odd suspension as well.
Of course it has leached into hockey with Reggie Flemming, who died after a long bout with the disease, and on Wednesday it was revealed that Bob Probert — who started to show signs of a mental decline as early as 40 — had CTE as well, even though he died from a heart attack.
CTE has been found in the donated brains of more than 25 former athletes. Considering how new this research is, one can’t imagine how many it has truly affected.
But it is this latest diagnosis that has the hockey community in a tizzy, to the point where a Globe and Mail editorial is calling for fighting to be taken out of hockey immediately.
It’s a knee-jerk reaction that sounds good on the surface but does little to solve the issue of brain injuries in hockey.
First of all, you will never completely eliminate head injuries in any contact sport.
If hockey wants to make a real impact on blind-side hits to the head, then a real penalty should be instituted. A suspension of three or four games is nothing. If you want to get rid of it, start suspensions at 10 games and go up from there. It worked to stop bench-clearing brawls in the 1980s and will have an effect on head hits now. Also, actually fine transgressors. Not the $2,000 or $3,000 fine that usually accompanies the loss of income. Hit them for an additional 10 per cent of their annual salary.
Also, you can scare them. Put the fear of God into them. Make them realize that concussions are not just a temporary problem. Update the tape on headshots to include testimony from the widows of athletes and their families. Take suspended players on tours of the BU research facility.
When I was growing up, the RCMP drilled home points by showing movies of train accidents or accident scene photos from drunk drivers, along with impact statements from the victims’ families.
Grill respect back into the players.
Until that happens, the NHL can’t drop one of the few things that will actually keep a player honest on ice: fighting.
And none of that will happen until the NHL follows the lead of the NFL and contributes to this research.
“The findings are interesting and certainly something we’ll add to a much broader body of knowledge,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Associated Press in an email. “But we’re not going to react or make changes based on findings related to one player, especially when it’s impossible to identify or isolate one of many variables that may have factored into the conclusions reached, and when there is no real ‘control group’ to compare his results to.”
jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com
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