Pro Football Talk’s Josh Alper and TSN’s Rick Westhead pass along what could be a breakthrough Boston University study - or at least the early stages of a breakthrough - in how concussions/CTE are handled in sports.
The key: after only being able to study brains of deceased athletes, there’s a chance that living athletes with CTE might eventually be identified.
On face value, that’s great news for player health. Hockey, like other contact sports such as football, is no stranger to careers and lives being derailed by brain injuries.
Of course, the NHL and NHLPA would need to cooperate to make the most of potential progress. If you’ve watched hockey long enough, particularly postseason hockey, you know that certain protocols can stand as great concepts met with hesitant execution.
Westhead expounds on such thoughts, and some of his findings aren’t very pretty.
The league is embroiled in a class-action lawsuit regarding concussions, and its actions have been elusive enough that politicians have gone as far as to accuse Gary Bettman and the NHL of being “delusional” about the issue.
FWIW, the NHL has hired a medical expert who argues that CTE does not exist as a disease.https://t.co/NraEI0k19U
— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) September 26, 2017
Don’t just put this on the league, though.
Players might be hesitant to take such tests if it means that they’ll miss playing time (or even see their careers end). It brings back memories of Peyton Manning willfully sandbagging his baseline concussion test. For better or worse, these guys want to play.
NHL player agent: “If I asked 30 of my players if they would take a test to tell them if they have CTE, I think zero would be interested."
— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) September 26, 2017
Not great, yet you can also understand the human element.
Of course, it’s crucial to realize that potential breakthroughs from this study could take quite some time to trickle into functional practices, even if leagues and players end up being more willing to comply than expected.
Overall, this is promising news. Hopefully such changes could help athletes during their careers and into retirement.