Head Injuries Becoming A Concern For NHL Teams
It was an all-too familiar scene for the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, when rookie winger Brandon Sutter went down with a concussion after a hit from former Hurricane and current New York Islander Doug Weight.
The Hurricanes have sustained four severe injuries in recent years, all resulting from shots to the head.
Sutter’s concussion was the last straw for Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford, who suggested the league is paying lip service over its concern for players’ safety when it comes to headshots.
“The league should at least stop saying it’s concerned with hits to the head, because it’s not,” Rutherford told TSN.ca. “I’ve had four players - Erik Cole, Trevor Letowski, Matt Cullen and now Sutter - get badly injured on hits to the head and only one of the guys who hit them was suspended. So don’t tell me the league is concerned about hits to the head because it’s not.”
“You can say it’s a contact game and it is, and I’m fine with that,” added Rutherford. “Just don’t say you care about players getting hit in the head because you don’t.”
But policing becomes a complex issue with a part of a game that’s technically not illegal and is deeply entrenched in hockey culture.
Many of these hits occur with a player getting caught with his head down so it’s easy to preach against but not so simple to correct, given the pace of today’s NHL.
The Montreal Canadiens, opponents of the Hurricanes on Tuesday, have their own story to tell, having lost Andrei Kostitsyn to a concussion last week.
Kostitsyn was injured when his head slammed against the glass and he landed face-first on the ice after being hit. by Kurt Sauer of the Phoenix Coyotes. He is awaiting medical confirmation to decide whether he will face the Hurricanes or miss his third game. The decision could come later today.
“They’re trying to eliminate hits to the head and this was a hit to the head, whether or not it was intentional. He got him with his arm,” Montreal head coach Guy Carbonneau said after the game.
Carbonneau wonders how long it will be before a player suffers a fate potentially worse than a concussion, such as former Hurricane Erik Cole, whose career and life were jeopardized.
Carbonneau suggests players need to make choices before hitting somebody in a vulnerable position. For the French press he drew a metaphor saying, “I’ve held a gun in my hand, but I’ve never wanted to shoot somebody.”
