If Boogaard death is related to his concussion, how will this affect the league?

[BostonsMainMan]

I think that this is a serious question. If Derek's death is from his concussion is December, some drastic changes would happen in the NHL.
What's your guy's take on the incident? :facepalm:

 

[wr50l]

I think that this is a serious question. If Derek's death is from his concussion is December, some drastic changes would happen in the NHL.
What's your guy's take on the incident? :facepalm:

I think the NHL is by far and away the most pro-active league at the moment when it comes to player safety. I'm not sure how much more they could do that wouldn't be in the pipeline already anyway.

The real issue likely to be merely speculated upon would be the fighting but they're not going to remove fighting without a very lengthy period (a decade or more) of phasing it out.

 

[BostonsMainMan]

even if they phase fighting out over the period of a decade, hockey would lose fans. fighting is part of the atmosphere and intensity and how some newer fans get attracted to the game

 

[killgod]

fighting will never go IMO, the players support it and understand it's their decision.

I don't think it's right to take the decision out of the players hands, they are adults and know the risks and have said so to the media many times.

the league will always look to improve on player safety but it's impossible to remove this injury from sport.

 

[EmpireWF]

If they haven't gotten rid of fighting by now, they won't. I couldn't care less if they outlawed it, it doesn't add any enjoyment to the game. If I want to see fighting, I'll watch MMA and watch someone get knocked out.

As for the toxicology reports, those are more in line to find out what was in his system when he died. So they'll find out what/if any kind of medication he was taking, any potential illegal drugs, testoserone, all that jazz.

Like mentioned above, I don't think there really is anything the NHL can do going forward to prevent concussions. It's the nature of the sport, try to improve the helmets I guess.

 

[wr50l]

even if they phase fighting out over the period of a decade, hockey would lose fans. fighting is part of the atmosphere and intensity and how some newer fans get attracted to the game

They will lose far more fans if they go too far in making certain legal bodychecking illegal than if they took a zero tolerance policy towards fighting. Only out of touch old men would switch off hockey as a protest if they took out fighting. It's a more low risk strategy than it's perceived to be because every time something happens the media wheel out the old guard to hear Don Cherry and Mike Milbury's thoughts on how soft the game is going.

Regardless it would take a death directly from fighting to spur this change and I am loathe to even discuss potential league changes when a) an autopsy will probably reveal cause of death to be something very different to a concussion and b) the NHL is already in a fast-moving process of changing the rules to try to reduce concussion injuries.

 

[MrBill]

I think the death is going to come back as some type of drug complication or accidental overdose. Agreed with others that even if it is somehow concussion related, it will not change how the NHL operates today.

 

[calgaryballer]

Make them wear their fucking helmets properly. It infuriates me to see a guy hit the ice and his chin strap flies up and over his head.

 

[PP]

No chance this is concussion related or head injury. The guy died of a drug overdose, bank on it.

 

[Ravin]

Make them wear their fucking helmets properly. It infuriates me to see a guy hit the ice and his chin strap flies up and over his head.

Not sure if you have played hockey or not, but the chin strap is fairly useless when it comes to hockey helmets, and if the helmet is coming off when a player hits the ice, it means the helmet is not the right size. Most of them dangle a little anyway, but the bucket should form to your head, and not really move at all. I just don't feel that putting all blame on a chin strap to make the helmet work right in a fall is a good idea. I sure as hell am not putting faith into my helmet's strap. Of course 95% of the time I play hockey now I don't have a helmet at all.

We didn't have an issue with hits to the head, high sticks and all this other nonsense when this was the style. Though obviously concussions are something we have only really got into over the last little while and in Craigs day they would have played through it, the respect level was much higher then.